Jeremy Lauzon might have a few nightmares about pucks bouncing off skates.
Not only did the Islanders score their first goal Monday night thanks to a puck deflecting off Lauzon’s foot and past Bruins goaltender Tuukka Rask in the second period. The hockey gods twisted the knife in overtime when an ill-advised pass by Lauzon caromed off Charlie Coyle’s skate and led to a breakaway goal for Casey Cizikas as New York defeated Boston 4-3 at TD Garden.
“Couple of bad breaks on a few of their goals. That’s hockey, though,” Coyle reasoned during a video conference after Game 2 of the teams’ second-round Stanley Cup playoff series. “It’s a game of inches. Sometimes, you get bad breaks, and that’s the way it goes sometimes. It’s how you respond, and we’ve got to respond now and get the next one. That’s all.”
The Bruins, who won Game 1 on Saturday night 5-2, jumped out to an early lead in Game 2 when Coyle scored his second goal of the playoffs. The Islanders swung momentum in their favor in the second period, though, scoring three goals, two of which came on the power play.
The Bruins showed tremendous fight in the third period to force overtime, with Patrice Bergeron and Brad Marchand finding the back of the net to tie the score 3-3. They then had the Islanders up against the ropes at various points in OT before Lauzon’s miscue doomed Boston’s chances of taking a commanding 2-0 series lead.
With just over five minutes remaining in the extra period, Lauzon attempted to make a D-to-D pass along the blue line rather than send the puck back in deep along the boards. Unfortunately for the B’s, the pass never reached its intended target, instead ricocheting off Coyle’s skate and right to Cizikas, who beat Rask down the other end to even the best-of-seven series at one game apiece.
“Well, we’ll go D-to-D high. We did it a lot. We got a lot of good offense from it tonight. But it wasn’t there,” Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy told reporters after the game. “He just has to look. You have to survey the ice. Anytime you have the puck, it’s a fluid hockey game. There are set plays for us that we run, but there has to be a player there. So you have to look. And usually you look first, and that’s some of the learning curve for younger guys. Take a look before the puck gets to you, recognize what’s going on.”
The loss in no way should be pinned on Lauzon. The Bruins simply were victimized by an unfortunate bounce in OT — after a few other tough breaks in regulation — and it’s hard to fault any one person for how the game unfolded.
Marchand put it best when asked about Lauzon’s error in judgment.
“(S—) happens,” he said after the game.
As such, the Bruins are quickly turning the page on Game 2. And they’re doing so by having their teammate’s back and focusing on responding well Thursday night when the series shifts to Nassau Coliseum. After all, this B’s team is no stranger to overcoming adversity.
“We all make mistakes. We’ve all been there,” Marchand said. “It’s tough when it happens to you. But we’re gonna bounce back. It’s not the end of the world. It’s 1-1. And we just got to worry about that next one. It’s all about how we regroup in here and move forward. That’s the thing about the playoffs. You’ve got to kinda be like an elephant, have a quick memory and just worry about the next day.”
Lauzon didn’t make a great decision on the play in overtime. He’ll learn from it, and the Bruins will move on. Simple as that.
“Nobody’s perfect in this game,” Marchand added. “We all mistakes every single night. We probably make a mistake every shift. That’s how it goes. Sometimes, they end up in your net. Sometimes, they don’t. If you want guys to understand when you make mistakes, you’ve got to do the same. We’re just there to back each other up. That’s kinda what we’ve always done in this room. We stand up for one another and stick up for each other, and it’s no different when something like that happens.
“It’s a fluke play. He tries to make a play, it goes off a skate. That stuff happens in hockey. We’re not concerned about it. We just have to worry about the next game. It’s all about how we bounce back as a group.”
Everything is magnified in the postseason, so sure, the Bruins probably have a bad taste in their mouths after letting Game 2 slip away. They just can’t afford to — and clearly don’t intend to — lose much sleep over it.
They’re on to Game 3.
