The Boston Bruins have struggled mightily in overtime this season.
The Black and Gold have notched just one win in the five times the team has gone to OT, and Wednesday night they became the victim of the Detroit Red Wings in a 3-2 overtime loss at Little Caesars Arena. Head coach Bruce Cassidy noted puck possession is a problem for the B’s and something they need to work on.
“We don’t manage it that well,” he said as seen on NESN’s “Bruins Overtime Live.” “Even when we got it back, we found a way to turn it over and they come back at us … we just gotta be smarter. These are good players on the ice. They gotta get it sorted out where they have puck possession and have a reasonable chance to attack.”
After a hard-fought first period, the Bruins broke the scoreless tie in the second period with a goal from Jakob Forsbacka Karlsson. But Boston was unable to hold the lead, as Detroit tied the game six minutes later and knotted the scored once again after Boston took a 2-1 lead in the third.
Cassidy was not pleased with his team’s inability to hang on to a lead.
“We do the things right we’re supposed to after we take the lead, it doesn’t go into overtime. I’m a little disappointed we couldn’t close it out and clamp down. But it’s something we’ll look at and go to work on and try to get better for Friday.”
Here are some other notes from Wednesday’s Bruins-Red Wings game:
— The Bruins return home after a 1-1-2 road trip. Given the team has dealt with a plethora of injuries, Cassidy still believes the road trip was a positive one.
“We battled hard,” Cassidy said. “Except for the third period in Colorado we kept the puck out of our net. We were determined to play good team defense and accomplished a lot of that. We were fairly disciplined trying to stay out of the box. We just needed some timely goals. We got one tonight from JFK and (Chris) Wagner.”
— Rask was marvelous in net for Boston despite the loss. He stopped 24 of 27 shots and kept his team in the game multiple times.
“He was very good, played excellent.” Cassidy said. “… At the end of the day in terms of stopping the puck, he was outstanding. Did his job and did it very well.”
— Forsbacka Karlsson took a puck to the face shortly after his second-period goal and went directly to the locker room. He did return to the game, however, but didn’t see a lot of ice time after the incident.
— The Bruins announced during the game Jakub Zboril had been assigned to Providence. The defenseman made his NHL debut Nov. 16.
— Boston held Detroit to just four shots on goal in the first period.
