BOSTON – Once again the Bruins were scouring for answers and reasons behind another disappointing loss on home ice and another instance where they couldn’t sustain the good feelings from one game to the next. The Bruins allowed six goals to one of the worst teams in the NHL, and were basically chasing the Blue Jackets for the entire 60 minutes in a 6-4 loss at TD Garden that dropped the B’s to 12-15-3 on home ice this season.
It was a bit stupefying to a Black and Gold bunch feeling good about themselves after a comeback win on the road against one of the NHL’s best teams in Dallas.
Prior to Columbus rolling onto the ice, Claude Julien set a little bit of the tone for the disappointment to come at Monday’s morning skate when he referenced the team getting in a 4 a.m. on Sunday from Dallas at the conclusion of their six game road trip. It wasn’t exactly an excuse to lose, but it also wasn’t a shock to the hockey system when a mistake-prone Bruins team couldn’t find a way to even salvage a point against the lowly Blue Jackets.
“It’s not good enough. We need to play much better when we’re coming home, and playing in front of our fans,” said Loui Eriksson, who scored two goals in the loss to the Blue Jackets. “I think no one is happy about how we’re playing right now at home, and that’s something we need to address and get better as we go along here. We know we have another big game coming up on Wednesday [against the Penguins] so we definitely need to get ready for that one and make our fans proud. [We need] to come out and play hard.”
Unfortunately for the Black and Gold, there were more of the same problems against Columbus as has been present in other low point losses this season. The Bruins defense gave up six goals to a Blue Jackets bunch playing out the string, and has now surrendered the most goals of any team in a playoff position aside from a fringe Colorado Avalanche group. They have the worst home ice record of any team in a playoff position, and they’ve now given up nine power plays goals in 11 games during the month of February as their special teams have betrayed them.
The Bruins might be able to slide into the Eastern Conference playoffs with such clear flaws in their collective game, but those will catch up to them quickly if they don’t start dictating terms in each and every contest. Instead they let the Blue Jackets toss them around for the first 40 minutes of the game with their physical, heavy style, and then the B’ futilely chased Columbus while straying far from their simple, hardworking game plan.
Bad pinches and shoddy coverage in the defensive zone followed once the Blue Jackets started to take over the game, and four posts hit by Columbus players was one of the only things that kept it from being even worse on the scoreboard.
“It’s always tough when you let one in off the get-go and you’re chasing. Like you said, it’s never fun that way. You always want to play with a lead and be able to have comfortability in your game. So that’s always tough, but at the same time it’s no excuse,” said Joe Morrow. “Our defensive game needs to be better. Just whatever curse we have at home where we can’t seem to find the energy or get the tempo of our game up, it just has to change sooner than later and we don’t have the time to turn it around. It’s pretty unacceptable.”
Unacceptable has been a word used far too often by the Bruins this season to describe their performance, and one has to wonder how much more with playoff opponents coming up in 12 of their next 15 games on the schedule. It could get even uglier if the Bruins don’t pick up their game to a much higher standard over the next month.