The Bruins had the second-best power play during the NHL regular season among the league’s 31 teams and relied heavily on their special teams last season to get them all the way to the Stanley Cup Final a little over a year ago.
That hasn’t been the case this time around as of yet with the Bruins 0-for-13 on the power play since arriving at the Toronto bubble a couple of weeks ago, and 0-for-4 in Wednesday’s 4-3 double-overtime Game 1 win against the Carolina Hurricanes. The B’s managed just three shots on net in those power play possessions, which is just anemic for a team that routinely destroyed other teams on the man advantage during the regular season.
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Even worse, a telegraphed David Pastrnak pass at the point was intercepted by Brock McGinn for a shorthanded score for the Hurricanes that made things more difficult for the Black and Gold in Game 1. Some of it is clearly about an aggressive Carolina penalty kill that is jumping Bruins puck carriers in the offensive zone, but some of it is also about the lack of practice time with Boston’s full group. The absences of David Pastrnak through all of training camp and other players intermittently through Phases 3 and 4 has been problematic while going over the remedial power play work for the group.
“I think Carolina is aggressive, for sure. The way they form that tight diamond in the neutral zone didn’t allow us to gain entry with possession. Which is something that we try to do as much as any team in this league. Maybe the stubbornness on our part to not to get pucks behind them – we have a couple of plays, we talked about even before. Unfortunately, we didn’t get a chance to practice the timing of some of them,” said Cassidy. “We always run that stretch play against Carolina off the end boards. We’ve had success against them doing that and we actually scored on them up there doing it. We sometimes find that will loosen them up.
“Then in-zone, probably forced some plays once we did get possession. I think you have to have a little more of a 5-on-5 mentality when you’re going against that, in terms of protecting a puck, maybe spinning out of a hit and get close support instead of thinking they’re going to let us set up. Some of it was just, we had to live it. We did. It cost us a shorty. We won the game, so we’ll move past it and try to make the necessary adjustments. I think it has hurt us the fact that you’re off for that long. Pasta [David Pastrnak] misses camp. [Ondrej] Kase misses camp on the second unit. You don’t have a lot of reps. When we got here, a couple guys needed maintenance days. Bergy, Pasta again. Now all of a sudden, you think maybe you can catch up here on the practice time and we weren’t able to do much of that either. So we’re behind on the power play. We’re going to have to simplify it and be ready for pressure tonight. Hopefully get it going again because it can be a major weapon for us.”
Certainly one of the things the B’s can do is make quicker decisions with the puck to beat the pressure coming at them, but some of that is dependent on repetition and PP chemistry that only comes with real-game experience and practice time.
Clearly getting the puck to Pastrnak in the face-off circle rather than closer to the point is something the Bruins want to do more of, but that's clearly something Carolina is paying attention to on the PK.
Unfortunately, in the midst of playing six games in nine days to start the Stanley Cup Playoffs, the Bruins aren’t going to get a tone of practice time to tighten things up in the middle of this first round series against the Hurricanes. The B’s would be best served by taking care of business against the Canes quickly to work on the PP in practice following this first round series, but that’s easier said than done against anybody in the NHL postseason.
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August 14, 2020 at 04:47AM
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Haggerty: Cassidy admits Bruins are 'behind on the power play' - NBC Sports Boston
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