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On Opening Night, the Boston Bruins put last year’s disappointing finish in the rearview mirror with a simply furious first period. The Bruins doubled up the Winnipeg Jets in shots, their defense and offense seemed to have the communication the group undoubtedly lacked a year ago, and top-line center (and healthy) David Krejci’s first of the season gave the club an early 1-0 edge through 20 minutes of play.
But then, little by little, some of the B’s bad habits from a year ago crept back into the picture, and before you knew it, the Bruins were on the wrong end of a 6-2 final at TD Garden.
Look at Winnipeg’s first goal. You had three forwards -- Krejci, David Pastrnak, and Matt Beleskey -- all breaking out within a few feet of each other. That doesn’t create any question as to where the pass is going for Dustin Byfuglien. Predictably, the ensuing Joe Morrow pass is intercepted with ease, Byfuglien drop it back to Mark Scheifele, and it’s 1-1. That’s the kind of stuff that was all too common in 2014-15.
Winnipeg’s second goal? Matt Irwin goes behind his net to regroup, Zach Trotman goes off to the side, but the Jets' captain Andrew Ladd comes in, swipes the puck off Irwin’s stick, and puts it right in front of the net, where Blake Wheeler is by himself and pots his first of the season. Again, all the rage last season.
And the third goal of the period from the Jets? You have Irwin hanging entirely too high, leaving Trotman essentially on his own to cover Drew Stafford and Adam Lowry down low, and Stafford chips it in once they easily take Trotman out of the mix. Too easy. Criminally easy, actually.
The Bruins moved within one just 1:25 into the first period behind Pastrnak’s first of the season. But as the B’s found life, Chris Thorburn connected on a breakaway and reestablished the Jets’ two-goal edge less than four minutes later. At this point, I feel like I’m just writing literally any blog from last season.
Nicolas Petan scored at the 9:51 mark, and Alex Burmistrov put the cherry on top with an empty-net strike with under four minutes left in the third, and the Bruins skated off to a chorus of boos.
It was the club’s worst opening night loss since 2006’s 8-3 drubbing at the hands of the Florida Panthers -- you remember that game, don’t you? (I try to block most memories from the Dave Lewis era out of my head for my own mental health) -- and certainly the worst in the Claude Julien era.
Random thoughts and notes
- In a blog/night/calendar year loaded with negativity, there are some definite positives when it comes to the B’s game tonight. The biggest, at least for me anyways was the noticeable chemistry between the B’s new first line of Beleskey-Krejci-Pastrnak. These guys were flying. Their forecheck was hard and created a ton of chances and time in the Winnipeg end. Beleskey is no Milan Lucic, but he doesn’t have to be, either. His brand of forechecking, though not as board-rattling as Lucic’s, is effective in the sense that he is an undeniably faster skater than ole’ No. 17. That allows him to keep pace with the play a bit better than Lucic, and more important it appears that Beleskey has the wheels to keep pace with a Krejci-Pastrnak combo -- most of the time. That’ll only get better with time, too, you’d think.
- With Dougie Hamilton out of town, and Zdeno Chara and Dennis Seidenberg on the shelf, puck management has to be the name of the game for the Bruins right now. You like the offensive prowess of guys like Morrow, Trotman, and Irwin, but what about at the other end? That’s where Julien and the B’s have concerns, and after tonight, you can see why. It could be first-game jitters, sure, and most of these guys have not played with one another for more than three or four weeks, but it just looked too easy for the Jets to disrupt what the Black and Gold were doing in their own end. It was chaotic. That’s absolutely not how Julien and the Bruins, with tweaks to the system or not, like to play.
In essence, this was far too much run-and-gun, and the Bruins are still not that kind of team.
- You have to wonder how long the leash will be on the Boston third line trio of
Brett Connolly,
Jimmy Hayes, and center
Ryan Spooner. These guys have been a constant since Day 1 of camp, but you honestly wouldn’t know it. They don’t really look like a group that’s gelled, and while it’s still extremely early, you have to wonder how long Julien, who has had a major love for a top-nine forward corp more than a top-six forward corp, will let ‘em post 0-0-0s across the board.
Up next
The Bruins are back at it on Saturday night as they play host to the Montreal Canadiens. The Black and Gold went a woeful 0-4-0 against the Canadiens a year ago, and have beaten the Canadiens just twice in their last 12 head-to-head meetings dating back to the start of the 2012-13 season.
Ty Anderson has been covering the National Hockey League for HockeyBuzz.com since 2010, is a member of the Pro Hockey Writers Association's Boston Chapter, and can be contacted on Twitter, or emailed at Ty.AndersonHB[at]gmail.com
Boston Bruins Blogger •Bruins Feature Columnist • 
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