With the off-season departures of Zdeno Chara and Torey Krug, the Bruins were showing faith in their young defensemen.
Brandon Carlo, Matt Grzelcyk, and Charlie McAvoy: the Bruins knew what they had in those three.
With Jakub Zboril and Jeremy Lauzon there was much unknown. The Bruins hoped for steps forward from two of those unknowns.
With youngsters adjusting to life in the NHL, growing pains are expected. As head coach Bruce Cassidy has often mentioned throughout the season, If you’re going to invest in your younger guys and roll with them on a game-by-game basis, you have to live with the mistakes.
Cassidy was true to his word. They rode the ups, and lived with the downs. Growing pains indeed.
But the timing of the latest growing pain was surely unfortunate, this one coming from Lauzon, and costing the Bruins Game 2 in the process.
Lauzon’s poor decision with the puck on his stick in the offensive zone sprung Casey Cizikas in the other direction on a breakaway. Cizikas rifled a shot past Tuukka Rask to give the Islanders a 4-3 overtime victory, tying the series at one a piece.
“We made a play that was obviously ill-advised and they scored on a breakaway,” said head coach Bruce Cassidy. “That’s what I saw on the overtime goal.”
With Cizikas pressing, Lauzon sent a no-look pass cross-ice, looking for his d-partner along the blue line. Lauzon intended for it to be your typical D-to-D pass, a play used as a start to some offensive zone success earlier in the game.
But this time, the puck never made it to its intended destination, hitting the skate of Charlie Coyle and bouncing exactly the way Cizikas wanted it to.
Even if the puck avoided Coyle, Lauzon’s defensive partner Charlie McAvoy wasn’t where Lauzon thought he would be. A quick glance to Lauzon’s right would have revealed that.
The look across ice never came, and with it, the Bruins chance at a 2-0 series lead vanished just like that.
“We’ll go D-to-D high, we did it a lot, got a lot of offense from it. But his partner wasn’t there, so he just has to look. I mean you have to survey the ice. Any time you have the puck, it’s a fluid hockey game and there are set plays for us we run, but there has to be a player there and you have to look. Usually you look first and that’s some of the learning curve for the younger guys,” said Cassidy.
“Take a look before the puck gets to you, recognize what’s going on. His partner wasn’t there because he was recovering back out. The cross-ice (pass) wouldn’t have been there in that particular case. If it doesn’t hit Charlie’s foot, it’s a race for their winger and our D to maybe chip it back down, but that’s one that had to go back down the wall, or down towards the net.”
The Bruins forced overtime with third period goals from Patrice Bergeron and Brad Marchand on the power play. The Islanders entered the period with a 3-1 lead thanks to a three-goal second period, the Islanders best 20 minutes of the series so far.
“[We] certainly played well enough to win. Pushed back, had a tough second period, didn’t do enough things well. Good start to the game, but here we are, it’s 1-1,” said Cassidy.
“They’re a good hockey club, certainly did not expect it to be easy. We’ll move on from this, take the good, work on the bad and get ready for Game 3 up there.”
Luck certainly wasn’t on the Bruins side in the second period.
The Islanders first goal from Josh Bailey was a cross-ice pass that deflected off the skate of Lauzon and through the five-hole of Rask.
Kyle Palmieri was in the right place at the right time after Nick Leddy’s shot from the slot missed wide, the puck taking the perfect bounce off the end boards to Palmieri.
“A couple of bad breaks on a few of their goals,” said Coyle who got the Bruins on the board first with a beauty of a first period goal. “That’s hockey though, it’s a game of inches and sometimes you get bad breaks. That’s the way it goes sometimes and it’s how you respond. We’ve got to respond now and get the next one, that’s all.”
After another period of not looking much like themselves in the first, the Islanders figured things out in the second, making life in the offensive zone much tougher for the Bruins.
“We knew what was coming, we talked about they would probably pack it in or close a little quicker down low,” said Cassidy. “Guys are just going to have to get more comfortable up there and be better and make better decisions. I’m sure we will, we’ll work on it and go from there.”
It was a night to forget for Lauzon who continues to struggle with the second gear that the Stanley Cup Playoffs bring.
As old friend Ty Anderson points out, Lauzon has been on the ice for seven goals in the playoffs, most among defensemen. Five of those have come five-on-five.
"Shit happens,” Brad Marchand said of Lauzon’s overtime error. “We all make mistakes, we've all been there."
Shit happens indeed, but the Bruins hope Lauzon’s growing pains don’t get any worse. There’s not much more room left for it.
Boston Bruins Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»