Things did go south in a big way for the Boston Bruins on Friday night against the Buffalo Sabres.
But before the horn, they started trekking back northward. The end result still was a 6-4 loss to a lowly Sabres team, but the Bruins have something to hang their hat on.
After conceding five unanswered goals, the Bruins found themselves down 5-1 with less than eight minutes to play. They rattled off three goals, pulling within one before a mismanaged puck in their offensive zone allowed Sam Reinhart to bury a game-sealing empty-netter.
There were veterans and youngsters alike who didn't quite give the Bruins enough in the loss. For Bruins head coach Bruce Cassidy, the messaging now isn't about calling out individuals.
"To me, the message is less about some of the individual burps, those are gonna happen, it's about staying in the game when you don't necessarily have your best game going," Cassidy said after the game over Zoom. "You've got to find a way to stay in the game, have some patience against a team -- especially a team that hasn't won a lot, maybe they get out of their game and start pressing. Give your goaltender a chance to make some saves for you, one and done, get the clears.
"It's just a lot of little things that go into those types of games where we didn't do enough of that," Cassidy continued. "Some of it was our veteran guys, and you just have to understand and hopefully you can get yourself in position to make a play when your game does come around. We've done a lot of that this year, we haven't had our best and found ways to get points."
The Bruins travel to Pittsburgh on Friday night, and will have Saturday off before facing the Penguins on Sunday and Tuesday. Between now and Sunday, there undoubtedly will be some digesting of what unfolded at KeyBank Center on Friday without dwelling on it for too long.
