BOSTON — The Bruins often talk about the importance of giving a “full 60-minute effort.” A performance that includes the occasional minor lapse but for the most part is full of good execution, mental toughness and sticking to head coach Claude Julien’s system.
The Bruins are good enough to beat some NHL teams without a total 60-minute effort because they have an excellent top defense pairing, quality depth at center and an elite goaltender. On the other hand, some elite opponents require the B’s to give a solid 60-minute performance, and one of them is the rival Montreal Canadiens.
“I think we lost too many battles, and again you can’t beat a team like that if you’re not going to win your battles, which is what we should be good at,” Julien said Sunday night after his team’s 3-1 loss to Montreal at TD Garden.
“When we did kind of push our game on them in spurts, we were getting some success, but you know, if you can’t sustain it throughout the whole game, then you’re not going to get the results, and we got them in spurts tonight. I don’t think we made Carey Price’s night real hard. He didn’t have to move much. He just stood there, stopped the shots, so those are areas that weren’t good enough. And in order to beat this team that really gets up for us, our best players have to be our best players, and we didn’t have that tonight.”
That last sentence summed it up best: The Bruins’ best players weren’t their best players.
Boston’s second line of Brad Marchand, Patrice Bergeron and Reilly Smith is the team’s best from a puck possession standpoint (each player has a Corsi-for percentage of 55 or above at even strength) and features its two leading goal scorers (Marchand 15, Bergeron 14).
The Bergeron line was matched up against the Canadiens’ top line of Max Pacioretty, David Desharnais and Dale Weise for the majority of its even-strength shifts. The advantage went to the Montreal trio, which had two goals, three assists and 11 shots on goal, compared to the Boston triplets’ 0-0-7 stat line.
“They’re winning battles and races,” Julien said of Montreal’s top line. “It’s not complicated. I’m telling you right now it’s disappointing to see your team lose battles. It’s disappointing to see them lose races to the puck and where any other team we play, whether it’s speed or not.”
Bergeron spent 63.64 percent of his even-strength shifts against Montreal’s top line and had a CF% of 45.27. That’s below what we’re accustomed to seeing from Bergeron, who ranks fifth among all forwards with a 58.4 CF% at even strength, per War on Ice. When Bergeron is not on the ice, Boston has controlled just 49.1 percent of 5-on-5 shot attempts this season, so when he struggles, the Bruins usually are in trouble. Bergeron has an enormous impact on the team’s ability to drive possession, as evidenced by his league-leading CorsiRel of 9.3 percent.
In addition to the rare off night from the Bergeron line, the Zdeno Chara-Dougie Hamilton pairing also struggled at times. Pacioretty doubled Montreal’s lead early in the third period when he scored on a breakaway that was set up by a turnover in the Canadiens’ zone when Chara and Hamilton both went for the puck and collided.
The Bruins created several good scoring chances Sunday night, Tuukka Rask played very well in net, the penalty kill continued to impress and it was a one-goal game or tied for about 45 of 60 minutes despite the B’s not playing their best. For the Bruins to overcome this hurdle, they must eliminate some of the mental errors that seem to plague them against the Canadiens.
“We tried to play our game, but again, if we don’t play our system, if we aren’t mentally sharp and that’s what seems to happen against those guys,” Bruins defenseman Dennis Seidenberg said. “Why? I don’t know, but we just have to somehow figure it out in the future.”
Thumbnail photo via Greg M. Cooper/USA TODAY Sports Images
Advanced stats via War on Ice
