Bruins vs. Flyers PRESEASON Recap: Bruins blueline short-circuits, get blow’d out 5-1

It wasn’t pretty, and it wasn’t really all that fun to watch. Let’s just get this part over with.

First Period:

Things didn’t end up going the Bruins’ way as for a vast portion of the period teams kept getting goals called back for goaltender interference and stick height. The first two that stuck however, were scored by the Flyers late, with Travis Konecny putting home a tremendous passing play out in front on the power play, and Jakub Voracek taking advantage of the team’s utter inability to leave their own end.

The period ended 2-0 Flyers.

2nd Period:

Things didn’t get any better. Early on, Brandon Manning found the top corner to put the Flyers up 3-0, and then, as the Bruins completely failed to be competent on the power play, Wayne Simmonds potted a beauty to make it 4-0.

Also in this period, David Krejci fought Nolan Patrick!

Preseason is weird.

This ended Tuukka Rask’s night.

3rd Period:

The Bruins did get on the scoreboard early, as David Krejci took a Kenny Agostino pass and thundered it past Alex Lyon to cut the lead to 4-1!

of course, then Sean Couturier ended up finding the back of the net, putting it almost right through Malcolm Subban on a deflection, and put the flyers up 5-1.

The team attempted to rebound from this, but...after such a brutal team effort, there really wasn’t much going on. The Bruins lose their penultimate preseason game and will play their final one in Chicago. Another radio game...

Game Notes:

• The penalty party was annoying. Even when the refs tone it down, both teams took a major hit from overturned goals and man-advantages at ill opportune times.
• The Rob O’Gara - Carlo played poorly last night. Both found a way to be completely pointless and listless in their own end, and both had serious issues identifying players right in front of Rask. This is not the first time this has happened to either.
• David Backes had a miserable showing even as part of the third line. He needs to step it up or that cap hit of his is going to look very bad.
• Really the only two lines that played well were the first line (Bratrice - Bjork) and the Krejci line, and even then, the Krejci line played very scrambly in their own end.
• Rask had the problem of not having a great performance, and having a defense that seemed uninterested in keeping the net-front clear. A lethal combination and Bruce was right to get him out. Subban did alright in the doomed 3rd period.
• The line combo of Agostino-JFK-Heinen? Gonna go with a pretty poor game for all but Agostino, and that was incidental. All seemed to have a lot of trouble establishing any sort of presence in any one zone.
• The difference between a Bruins blueline with Zdeno Chara and Torey Krug and one that has neither is a noticeable one. One can only hope that at least Chara comes back for the regular season.
• And of course, the caveat of all of these...it’s only preseason.

Their next game is at 8:30pm EST on Saturday. See you there.