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Bruins end road trip with first loss, won’t be going undefeated

October 11, 2019, 12:03 PM ET [6 Comments]
Anthony Travalgia
Boston Bruins Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
82-0? Nope

82-1? Maybe

After a 3-0 start to the 2019-20 season, the Bruins finally lost a hockey game, this one, 4-2 to the Colorado Avalanche. Their contest in Denver was the final of a season-opening four-game road trip, one that saw the Bruins earn six of a possible eight points.

Not a bad way to start the season.

“Obviously it's frustrating to lose the last game, felt like we had a good start, just a couple of tough bounces,” said David Krejci who picked up his first assist of the season in the loss. “Overall, six of eight points (on the trip) is not bad, but we feel in here that we could easily have eight (points).”

The Bruins jumped out to a 2-0 first period lead behind goals by David Pastrnak and Zdeno Chara, before the Avalanche answered with a pair of goals of their own.

But it was a pair of Bruins goals, well, non-goals, that was the topic of conversation at the Pepsi Center following the loss.

Goals by Karson Kuhlman and Jake DeBrusk were both challenged and eventually overturned for goalie interference and offsides respectively.



“I can't really tell the offside, it's too tight for me,” head coach Bruce Cassidy said following the loss when asked about his thoughts on the two disallowed goals. “The goalie interference, as it was explained to us, it was going to be egregious calls. That's what the challenge was for. Didn't look egregious to me, but that's what they call that sort of call.”



“I thought we played hard, battled for 60 minutes. This is a tough building to come in and play. I thought for the most part we did a good job playing hard,” said goalie Jaroslav Halak who made 32 saves in the loss. “Then just a hard way to end the road trip when two goals were taken away from us. But can't really focus on that, we've got to put that behind us and focus on the positives, move on and get ready for Saturday.”

It was a frustrating night for a Bruins team that played well enough to win, but it was even more frustrating for Jake DeBrusk who had two points wiped off the board in the contest. Points that would have been his first two of the season.

“Well I scored and had an assist tonight, they got pulled back,” DeBrusk said. “We should have won this game 4-2, but honestly those weren't goals, I guess. One was Offside and goalie interference. They looked at it and that's how it was. I don't think it's gonna snowball, but definitely pissing me off for sure."

The two points that DeBrusk lost on Thursday should piss him off. His line—Krejci and Kuhlman—have struggled to generate offense through three games together; the two disallowed goals would have resulted in a solid night in the box score for the line.

Instead, DeBrusk and Kuhlman remain pointless on the young season. Sure, the line had one of their better nights so far, but they surely would have liked to have something to show for it.

“You’ve just got to be better in those situations. (DeBrusk) had a good game, he set up Kuhlman,” added Cassidy. “They don’t count that one. He gets his first, they don’t count that one. I can see where you’re going to get get frustrated.”

It’s been a slow start for the Krejci line, a line that many had high hopes for. Four games is a small sample size for sure, but at some point the line needs to start producing on the score sheet, otherwise, Cassidy will be reaching back into his bag of tricks in hopes of finding scoring on his second line.

"We know there's some room to improve,” said Krejci. “We felt like it was coming along, but some parts of the game, as my line, we weren't sharp enough.”

In 24:42 of five-on-five time ice time together, DeBrusk, Krejci and Kuhlman have been outscored 1-0, out shot 16-10 and out chanced 13-4.

With the next four games at home beginning Saturday against New Jersey, the Bruins hope that a return to TD Garden is exactly what the second line needs in order to kick things into gear.
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