Bruins Notes: Bruce Cassidy Defends Boston Goaltending After Loss

Bruins goaltender Linus Ullmark allowed four goals on 17 shots while Jeremy Swayman gave up two goals on 12 shots in what proved to be a 6-1 defeat against the Dallas Stars on Sunday night.

Still, Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy isn’t pointing the finger at poor goaltending for Boston’s most recent loss.

“I mean, we didn’t do enough in front of them,” Cassidy said on his postgame video conference. “So again, I think most of the goals are, you cannot even, you can’t put on the goaltending.

“So I thought our goaltending wasn’t the problem tonight at all,” Cassidy added. “There’s just too many easy opportunities for them (Stars). We had some where we could have you know made the game closer where I thought (Stars’ Jake Oettinger) was excellent. You know, in a 6-1 game you don’t often look at their goalie, but I thought he made some key saves that, when it was still a hockey game for them, I know (Pastrnak) in the second period for sure, a couple others. But at the end of the day, our goaltending was fine. We were not nearly good enough in front of them.”

Dallas scored a pair of first-period goals with the second coming on a breakaway against Ullmark.

Bruins Wrap: Tyler Seguin, Stars Send Boston Home With One-Sided Loss

Jan 30, 2022

Here are more notes from Bruins-Stars:

— Swayman came on for Ullmark after the latter allowed the fourth of the game. Swayman, who was recalled from Providence due to the injury of Tuukka Rask, came in for the final 32 minutes.

Cassidy explained why the decision was made.

“I mean, it was a little more of, ‘Okay, we’ll get him out there. He’s done some good work for us. We weren’t playing great, get Swayman some work back at the NHL level.’ “

— Tyler Seguin finished with three points on two goals for the Stars, scoring both the first and last goals of the game.

“Obviously the longer you’re in the league, the more experience you get and more you develop your hockey IQ, and he has good hockey IQ,” Cassidy said of the former Bruin forward. “I don’t see him enough for sure, but he looked good tonight, but they all looked good.”

— Cassidy shared how Rask hasn’t practiced yet so the Bruins aren’t likely to see him back before the NHL All-Star break. The Bruins will decide who plays between the posts (between Swayman and Ullmark) ahead of Tuesday’s game against the Seattle Kraken.

— Cassidy also shared how Nick Foligno has been skating and appears to be the next in line to return for Boston, likely before Trent Frederic.

— The Bruins placed Erik Haula in COVID-19 protocols before Sunday’s game while recalling forward Steven Fogarty. Fogarty played 12:54 in his Bruins debut.

— The Bruins will return to action Tuesday at TD Garden as they host the Seattle Kraken with puck drop at 7 p.m. ET.