Bruins Notes: How Boston Is Reacting To Troubling Theme Of Late

The Bruins continued a troubling theme during Monday’s overtime loss against the Los Angeles Kings as Boston allowed the visitors to score the game-tying tally late in regulation for the third time in four contests.

While Bruins head coach Bruce Cassidy credited Monday to being more of an unlucky bounce than a self-inflicted mistake, it nevertheless allowed the Kings to mount a late comeback and ultimately limit Boston to one point in a game that felt more like a loss.

Bruins forward Craig Smith, who finished with two points including what was 25 seconds away from being the game-winning goal, explained how the group is going about dealing with the concerning issue.

“Yeah, yeah and that’s certainly stuff we can look at on video but it’s happening. If you look at just a segment of last two weeks, it’s happening too often,” Smith said after the 3-2 overtime defeat per a team-provided video. “And like I said, you can go back and look at video and correct those things and move forward. There’s only two things you can do — you sit and be pissed about it, which, you know, we are right now, but we got to make the next step forward and make the corrections and make sure that we’re tightening up. It’s all things that we can fix, and we have the people to do it.

“It’s unfortunate, but we got the guys in the room here to make the switch and step up.”

Cassidy was asked if there was anything in common between the three examples and expressed how the prior two against Anaheim and Columbus came as Boston was sent to the penalty box.

Bruins Wrap: Boston Falls In Disheartening Overtime Loss Vs. Kings

Mar 7, 2022

Here are more Bruins-Kings notes:

— Cassidy didn’t take as much of an issue with LA’s game-tying goal as he did with the overtime tally. The game ultimately ended as Charlie Coyle turned the puck over on the three-on-three giving away a breakaway bid on Bruins goaltender Linus Ullmark.

“As for the overtime, well, you got to value the puck. The play at the end is just not very good hockey play, let’s face it,” Cassidy said, per a team-provided video. “We got what we deserved on that play, that’s for sure.”

— The Bruins’ third line of Trent Frederic-Coyle-Smith accounted for multiple goals for the second time in the last three contests. Frederic put the Bruins up 1-0 at 14:02 of the first period before Smith provided the second goal at 19:05 of the second.

Both goals came on impressive shifts as Smith won a puck battle along the boards before Frederic’s goal and Coyle put together a clinic handling the puck prior to sliding his second assist of the game to Smith.

— Ullmark returned to the net and came away with 25 saves on 28 shots.

“He got much better as the game went along. He hasn’t seen a lot of action so that’s to be expected,” Cassidy added. “First one found its way through. He had some of those issues earlier in the year when pucks were hitting them square and finding their way through. But after that made the stops, good stops, athletic stops. Played the puck better, more assertive.

“So, all in all, was a good outing for him,” Cassidy continued. “He made some key saves we needed including one in overtime where we broke down in front of the net too.”

— Boston isn’t usually on the wrong end when it comes to the face off with Patrice Bergeron a mainstay, but it wasn’t an area of strength Monday. LA had a 58% success rate in the circle, and it led to some key offensive chances.

“We had some issues in the face-off circle tonight. They were better than us, usually that’s an area of strength, and that led to some of the breakdowns as well,” Cassidy said.

— Matt Grzelcyk entered Monday as a game-time decision and was not able to go against the Kings with Jack Ahcan subbing into the lineup instead. Cassidy, however, said he does not think the defenseman’s upper-body injury is anything too serious and he’ll have a better idea of his status for Thursday as the game gets closer.

— Boston will return to TD Garden on Thursday to host the Chicago Blackhawks.