Julien put no timetable on Marchand’s return, saying that the team will follow the league’s concussion protocol and monitor his status accordingly. Or so you’re led to believe. It was yet another step backward for a Bruins team that had recently turned the tide after yet another decade of futility against Montreal.
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Full rebuild or a team now playing without its captain/best defenseman; Mere semantics, I suppose. I’d be curious to see what Devante Smith-Pelly (who played a solid game along with his line mates) could do on a line with Fleischmann and Desharnais.
Beleskey responded late in the second to make it a game, but that’s as close as the Bruins got in this one. But it’s impossible to judge this team as anything close to a finished product at this very moment.
Injured defencemen Zdeno Chara and Dennis Seidenberg leave a gaping hole on the blue line, and the loss of Dougie Hamilton in a trade seems insurmountable.
It feels like Julien has been on the hot seat for several years now, but he’s still hanging on to his job even though he failed to get his team to the playoffs last season. If he clears waivers, the B’s can assign him to Providence.
Given the strides you thought you saw from the B’s defense corps through training camp, it’s come as a shock to the system for a Boston point that’s simply tripping over their themselves at every turn.
“It’s chemistry, right? So I think you build that a little bit more”, said Krug. “We haven’t made that decision yet”.
Just 1:14 in, Beleskey made what looked like a routine check on Montreal defenseman Alexei Emelin, but he was called for a phantom penalty – an illegal check to the head.
As for Rask, he made 34 saves and helped Boston shut down five other Montreal power plays-including a five-on-three-and still came out on the losing end of this one.
But the B’s struggles go beyond the absence of Chara, of course.
Bruins forward Brad Marchand, who left last night’s game against Montreal early, will be out indefinitely as he recovers from a concussion. “It’s just if he’s good to go, and what’s the risk factor”. Their efforts were undone by yet another penalty, their sixth of the contest, as David Krejci cross-checked Weise in front of the Bruins net midway through the third, though the Canadiens failed to convert, with the first goal from Desharnais being the only power play goal the Habs would score. So, 100 bad minutes, really. Steven Stamkos, perhaps exhausted of reading pre-game releases about how long it’s been since the Lightning have won at TD Garden, ripped his own PPG after Bergeron had, once again, got the gate.
And at the end of the day, they’re still just two games in.
If not, the Bruins could lose their first three games of a season for the first time since 1999-2000. “There’s a lot of people that we need to get more out of it, if we’re going to battle our way out of this”.
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“Obviously, it was pretty good game for us offensively and defensively”.
