After losing the first 3 home games of the season for the first time since the 1960's, the Bruins are heading West to play the Avs and Coyotes. A road trip can change a whole season, it has to for this struggling B's team.
With their Captain back for the traditional Columbus Day matinee, the Bruins were off to a great start in Monday nights game against the Lightning. Two powerplay-goals by David Krejci and Loui Eriksson had them up midway through the first. It was Brian Boyle scoring late, that changed the whole theme of this game. At the end of it, the B's head on the road with a 0-3 record, having allowed 16 goals in just three games.
Of course the B's could have scored more and I'm not saying that our forward line up is anywhere near the top 5 in the league but you can't allow more than 4 goals and expect to win a hockey game. Which brings us to the problem: " all good Bruins teams have been build from the back-end "
The Bruins finished top 5 in goals against, six times in a row between 2008 and 2014. And guess what, they made the playoffs each year. In the same time span, the B's only managed to make the top 5 in goals for three times. Blame who you want, but this team is dependent to play with a strong Defense.
It won't help us moving foward, to look back at "mistakes" being made by either GM, Dougie Hamilton and Johnny Boychuk to mention here. The status quo is that we have a mainly inexperienced D-core lead by 9 years of captaincy in Zdeno Chara.
Moving Big Z has never made less sense than now, any of these young defenseman can learn a lot from him. Same can be said about Dennis Seidenberg if he can bounce back from a horrible 2014-15 season.
Adding to that I don't see Boston having any "trading asset" that they are able to spare for a top 4 defenseman. At least not without having REBUILD written all over it and that won't happen with the current front office. Rightly so, the Bruins have a top goalie to build around, a three time Selke trophy winner, a playmaking Center in Krejci and a unique "ball of hate" in Marchand. All players in their prime, who can at least perform on that level for the next 4-5 years.
With having Chara for at least 2 more seasons after this, we all know what workhorse he is, the Bruins have to find a way to develop their own defensive core. The talent is there with Matt Grzelcyk, Linus Arnesson and this years draft class including Zboril, Carlo and Lauzon. Some say there's nothing harder to develop than a defenseman and these guys have yet a long way ahead of them.
In the meantime the B's have to rely on their experienced D-man, helping to make guys like Colin Miller or Zach Trotman better from game to game. The estimated return of Seidenberg in late November will certainly make the back-end more stable.
You can't do wrong with the idea of mixing experience with youth, which is why I don't understand that CJ is playing Kevan Miller with Chara, Krug and McQuaid together, leaving an anxious 3rd line pairing of Colin Miller and Joe Morrow.
I would go like this for tonights game:
| Zdeno Chara | Zach Trotman |
| Torey Krug | Colin Miller |
| Tommy Cross | Adam McQuaid |
Tuukka Rask should get some rest tonight and focus on the game against Phoenix on Saturday. That match up at Glendale has "bounce back" written all over it. If you don't start Gustavsson tonight, when are you ever going to start him ?!
Keine Kommentare:
Kommentar veröffentlichen