BOSTON — Bruce Cassidy fell on the sword after the Bruins’ loss to the Edmonton Oilers on Thursday night, which dropped Boston to 6-5-0 on the season.
“At some point, it’s not by accident,” he said after the loss. “We have to do a better job.”
By we, he meant the coaching staff, whether it was warranted or not after a third-period marred by one-too-many passes, not enough shots, and a pair of defensive breakdowns to boot.
It’s still early in the campaign, but not early enough to ignore patterns Boston has exhibited so far this season. And for that reason, Cassidy blames himself and the coaching staff.
“Guys are trying to make plays that aren’t there or they don’t have the ability to make,” Cassidy said.
“It’s 11 games, some guys have been in the league for a while so you assume they’re gonna make them, but they’re not. So you have to get the message across that there’s different ways to score goals. Not everyone can be (Patrice) Bergeron’s line. Not everyone can play like (Connor) McDavid. Like I said, as a staff, we have to do a better job of getting the players to understand what they can be successful at — how they can help the team win. And then the offensive part of it is, one of those is just getting a little more shot mentality. We have addressed it but clearly it’s fallen on deaf ears so we got to do a little better job addressing that.”
We’re sure his players appreciate Cassidy taking the brunt of the blame.
Boston can get back in the win column Saturday against the New Jersey Devils.
