BOSTON — Bruins coach Claude Julien spent close to five minutes Tuesday night railing on the lack of effort, commitment and focus his team showed in a loss to the San Jose Sharks.
Brad Marchand drove that message home in one pointed response.
“I think right now,” the winger said after Boston’s 5-4 loss at TD Garden, “if we’re going to get out of this, and we’re going to start putting a few wins together, we have to have everyone going every night, and we can’t have any passengers at all. If we have one, that’s enough to cost us a game. And right now, we have way too many.”
“Passengers.” Those are the last things a team like the Bruins, one that is in semi-rebuilding mode and rife with unproven NHL talent, needs. A team like Boston needs top-to-bottom buy-in from the entire roster, and, as Marchand, Julien and several other Bruins team leaders acknowledged Tuesday, it simply has not been there on a consistent basis.
“Well, it didn’t look like the focus was there for the most part,” goalie Tuukaa Rask said. “You look at most of those goals, how they got scored on, I think it’s just lack of focus for the most part. There were some nice goals, but lack of focus.”
“Maybe a little bit (lack of commitment),” center David Krejci added. “But you know, we’re a team here. We win as a team, we lose as a team. If there’s something that has to be addressed, it will be (Wednesday). But like I said, we win as a team, and we lose as a team.”
Streakiness and inconsistency have plagued these Bruins. They were swept in a season-opening three-game homestand, then won five of their next six, then lost five of their next seven, culminating in the loss to the Sharks that seemed to convince Julien that change is needed.
All the while, the Bruins have been losing in the most frustrating of ways, building early leads in game after game, only to see them slip away. That again was the case Tuesday, as the B’s led 2-1 late in the first period and 3-2 early in the second before surrendering three goals in less than four minutes, the last of which proved to be the game-winner.
Something does need to change for this Bruins team to avoid another postseason no-show. But tinkering with lines, handing out message-sending healthy scratches or calling in reinforcements from Providence — or whatever else Julien or general manager Don Sweeney might be planning — can only accomplish so much if the guys on the ice don’t come to play.
“We have to hold each other accountable,” Marchand said. “And we do at times, but maybe there has to be more of it. I don’t know. We’ll have to figure that out.”
Thumbnail photo via Mark L. Baer/USA TODAY Sports Images
