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Preseason Recap: Bruins defense misfires badly as they lose 4-3 to MTL

It's just preseason, and there WERE good things...but some important things need to be re-tooled immediately.

By SkyonAir
Eric Bolte-USA TODAY Sports

As the ancient hawaiians used to say: Oy gevalt.

First Period:

The Period started well enough. The Bruins offense was buzzing Al Montoya early, making sure he had to work for every shot. The Habs kept themselves busy by blocking shots and attempting lucky chances on Rask, who he turned away otherwise. The Bruins would break onto the scoresheet as Ryan Spooner took advantage of a loose puck out in front of Al Montoya and buried it. 1-0 Bruins.

The Bruins would more or less control the period. SOG, chances, keeping the Habs out, you name it? They did it. The only interesting part of this period was that a piece of plexiglass behind Rask would come undone and it took so long to put together both teams elected to just play the remaining 38 seconds of Period 1 after intermission.

The Last 38 seconds of the First Period:

Rask made a great toe save. That would officially end the First period.

Second Period:

The second period seemed to go just as well as the first, if not more so.

One such Bruin to be having a good time (and a good game in general) was debuting Christian Ehrhoff, who managed an absolute bomb to get past Al Montoya to put the Bruins up 2-0.

I knew he'd pay off.

Of course, it couldn't last as it had. The Bruins in spite of everything, allowed Jeff Petry to get a decent shot in on Rask and he managed to cut the lead to one. 2-1. It wouldn't get any better as Artturi Lehkonen ended up getting the game tying goal later in the period. The period would end with 2-2 being the score.

Third Period:

This would start pretty well as the Bruins were on the PK and had Austin Czarnik out there. Austin Czarnik wants to be a Boston Bruin.

Austin Czarnik in all honesty will probably end up a Boston Bruin if he keeps this up.

Unfortunately, this is where all the good things that happened in tonight's game ended. As the B's gave up a goal almost immediately. Seconds later the Bruins were overwhelmed and the habs tied it up 3-3. But it was no big deal as far as the B's were concerned. Almost immediately the Bruins got back to getting chances, taking shots, keeping the pressure on Al Montoya and-

...mother of god, who made this defense pairing and who can I paddle for sending it out there. 4-3 Habs for the first time in the game. The Bruins tried their damnedest, but it was clear they were far too disorganized in their own end at this point that minutes basically became seconds, and then time expired. A brutal. brutal loss on one of their better preseason efforts.

They'll be back at it on Thursday as they take on the Blue Jackets at 7pm.

Assorted Notes:

  • Kevan Miller took an injury and did not return. We'll hear more about that soon enough
  • Austin Czarnik's sticking around. He has to at this point. He's done nothing but excel in key situations where the Bruins needed him. Him and Danton Heinen will likely be mainstays for the upcoming season.
  • David Backes has been pretty good so far. Not much to say other than he's been producing like the David Backes people assume he is so I'm glad he's doing well.
  • Ryan Spooner was part of a strong effort last night. I admit some trepidation on his move to the wing but he appears to be playing just fine in his current role.
  • Whoever came up with McQuaid - Chara as a defense pairing is not a good person, and should be told so. That shift more or less broke the back of the Bruins chances of succeeding, and ended the B's playing with any kind of aggression and opportunity, preferring to play it safe afterwards. Let us please never do this ever again. Please? Okay? Thank you.
  • That said, when Ehrhoff-Colin Miller were a pairing, good things happened such as getting out of the zone and creating both chances and attempting to enter the offensive zone. It was kind of great to behold and hope to see if that pays off in the future with future minutes.
  • The score once again does not reflect the effort Rask had to put up just to keep it tied for so long. His effort was genuinely unbelievable. It definitely doesn't help that the majority of good chances Montreal had were in the slot or crease, where Habs players shot generally unmolested. May want to work on that.
  • Watching this on RDS was kind of fun! Even if I didn't understand a word of it. Curse my reptilian monolingual brain.
  • In general coming up with more meaty subjects was hard for this game due to a complete failure on the NHL's part to properly track the game's events, numbers, etc. It's kind of a big deal for those of us who want to get info out to your audience.
  • NESN didn't have a single goddamn reason they couldn't send a team to Quebec. Instead, they chose to lose viewers on a show almost nobody watches and most people skip on in order to just watch what they want to: the Bruins or the Red Sox. Get it together, NESN producers. Learn to take chances.

See you all Thursday!

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PRESEASON: Bruins vs. Habs 10/4/16

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