For as well as the Bruins have played this season, games like the one Boston played Thursday night are bound to happen here and there.
The Bruins’ 7-2 loss to the Islanders was their third defeat in four games and was Boston’s second time dropping a match to New York during that stretch.
There was some trouble with execution, certainly, but not necessarily enough for head coach Bruce Cassidy to want to shake things up completely to get his team back on track.
Depending on what he sees while reviewing game film, however, he might switch up the line pairings a bit. Still, they’re unlikely to include defender Matt Grzelcyk, who Cassidy says isn’t quite ready.
“On D, we have Steven Kampfer who is healthy. I don’t believe Matt Grzelcyk is ready. You know, obviously, you know we could go that direction,” Cassidy told reporters during his postgame media availability. “Upfront, I don’t know. We’ll look at the game a little closer. Again I don’t want to be rash. We have a good hockey club in there. We want to give players an opportunity to atone. You know, I don’t think our top guys, our top line, you know, gave us a whole lot tonight. But we’re not going to take them out of the lineup, the guys we rely on every night and I assume they’ll be better tomorrow. Bottom of the lineup, we could look at that. But most the time around here, we’ve tried to give guys an opportunity to bounce back. You guys in the room know that they weren’t at their best for 60 minutes. So sometimes it’s good to get right back at it. So we’ll make that decision tomorrow.”
The Bruins play again Friday night, finishing the road trip with a two-game stretch against the New York Rangers.
We’ll see how or if Cassidy makes any tweaks. It could just be that the Islanders have the Bruins’ number.
