The Bruins, who many pundits have picked to have a "magical" season, looked more like they were inflicting witchcraft on themselves on Thursday night as they lost 4-1 to what appears to be a very good Washington Capitals squad.
Capitals superstar Alexander Ovechkin (two goals and an assist) was everything you'd expect and more, and chances are the Bruins would have lost even if they played a good game. But the bottom line was that they did not play well, they hurt themselves with costly mistakes and they simply did not look to be in sync in their 2009-10 season opener before a sellout crowd at TD Garden.
"It was a night where we had too many good players at their worst," head coach Claude Julien said. "You have to be focused for 60 minutes in this game, and we weren't. We had a lot of good players who weren't very good tonight."
Longtime Bruins fans know all too well what an undisciplined penalty like too many men on the ice can lead to, and that's exactly how Washington got on the board at 17:15 of the first period, when Brooks Laich scored a power-play goal to give the Capitals a 1-0 lead. It was basically all downhill from there as the Bruins never seemed to regain their composure or find their game.
"We get too many men on the ice and they take the lead," Julien recalled after the game. "When you play teams like Washington, a very good team that takes advantage of those kinds of little mistakes, those things come back to haunt you. Right there, that changed the momentum a little bit. We started playing on our heels, and as the game went on, we had some guys forcing the issue a little bit."
Julien acknowledged Ovechkin's brilliance and the Capitals' solid play, but he was still disappointed at his team's carelessness.
"You never take any credit away from a good player who scores goals like [Ovechkin] does, but at the same time, you have to look at how he gets them, and a lot of those were maybe what I would call 'gifts' from us, looking at those areas where he got the puck," Julien said. "His first goal was a terrible line change … and the other one [Milan] Lucic should've had him in good position. Those are the kind of things that you don't want to take credit away from him, but you also want to be a little more demanding of your players, especially when [Ovechkin's] on the ice."
But Julien knows he won't need to remind his players about their self-inflicted wounds.
"After a game like tonight, as a coach, I would hope that your players would understand that," he said. "I'd be very disappointed if I had to go in there and explain to them what really happened tonight. They're a smart group and as much as it's easy right now to jump on them, I think it's also important to realize that this is also a good team that's done things in the past and will do good things in the future. One game out of 82, [so] you hope that a lesson learned tonight will benefit us in the long run."
If that lesson isn't learned soon, they might have to go find a magician.
