Hurricanes 2 – Bruins 4 | Necessary changes

Backed into the wall after suffering two straight losses to start their series against the Carolina Hurricanes, the Boston Bruins made two important changes for Game 3. Changes they should have made sooner.

Miguel Bujold
The Press

Coach Bruce Cassidy removed goaltender Linus Ullmark from the starting lineup and gave the net to youngster Jeremy Swayman. He also brought together the trio made up of Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak. How was it possible to dismantle a line of attack nicknamed the perfection line ? This is a question to which one can hardly find a satisfactory answer.

The result was a nice 4-2 victory, which kind of started this best-of-seven series between the two teams. Well-built clubs and still as disciplined in their playing structure.

We understand the Bruins’ decision to sign Ullmark as a free agent last summer. Swayman was inexperienced and it was unclear what awaited Tuukka Rask, who finally retired after a brief return to action a few months ago. A wise choice by GM Don Sweeney, certainly.

Ullmark is not a bad keeper. But 20 million for four years? It’s too much money for a goalkeeper who would be in the right chair if he were a reservist limited to thirty starts per season.

Swayman was part lucky, part good on Friday night, but it seems pretty clear that his presence in front of goal gives his teammates more confidence than Ullmark’s. The 23-year-old keeper allowed a poor goal on a Jaccob Slavin shot midway through the third period that made it 4-2 and made the final minutes more interesting, but overall Swayman did very well, stopping 25 27 shots.

At the other end of the ice, Pyotr Kochetkov did not have much to reproach himself for, either. He couldn’t do much about the Bruins’ goals. Canes’ third goalkeeper, the 22-year-old Russian, who usually has to communicate with his coaches using a translation app, Google Translate not to name her, was starting the first game of her career in the playoffs, just like Swayman.

Finally the guns

It’s not rocket science for the Bruins. If they want to make it any further in the tournament, their big guns will need to score the majority of their goals, as they have consistently done for years. Their support players are in the lineup for their robustness, the check before they exercise or the quality of their defensive game. From the blue line, only Charlie McAvoy, who has established himself as one of the top five defensemen in the NHL this season, can contribute consistently on offense.

The big guns of the Bruins, we all know them: Pastrnak, Marchand, Bergeron and Taylor Hall. They all scored except for Bergeron on Friday night and had seven points.

It was more specifically in the second period that the Bruins finally got going after nine very ordinary periods to start the series. The Hurricanes had controlled the game and took a 1-0 lead thanks to a first-half goal from Vincent Trocheck, but Charlie Coyle’s net following a superb pass from shorthanded Jake Debrusk turned the pace of the game upside down. game in favor of the locals before the intermission.

In the second period, Marchand scored his first empty-netter goal in 16 games, then Pastrnak made it 3-1. The more the game progressed, the more the Boston attackers played with patience at the entrance of the zone, which created chances to score which they seized on a few occasions. Without saying that they play the famous “trap”, let’s say that the Hurricanes forwards play very tight in the middle zones…

At the other end, Bruins defensemen began to assert themselves more in terms of toughness and positioning and thus better contained the tough Hurricanes forwards. Derek Forbort was particularly good, blocking nine Canes shots. The Bruins did a better job of keeping the Canes forwards on the perimeter and allowing a few fewer juicy second chances at the mouth of the goal.

Scenario to avoid for the Canes

Before losing at TD Garden on Friday night, the Hurricanes had won each of their five meetings against the Bruins, including three in the regular season, by a total score of 26 to 4… Monday and Wednesday night, not only had they been much more faster than the Bruins, but they had also been significantly more physical.

The Canes got the better of them this year, but let’s not forget that they were eliminated in five games by the Bruins two years ago. The previous year, it was a sweep that the Bruins had served to the men of Rod Brind’Amour.

But with the exception of the Tampa Bay Lightning, the Hurricanes may have been the NHL’s best organization in four or five years. Their training was built the right way. Their collection of talented young forwards, led by Sebastian Aho, Andrei Svechnikov and soon to be Seth Jarvis, is impressive, and their defense is led by the NHL’s most underrated player, Jaccob Slavin. That’s not to mention Brind’Amour, a rising star in the world of coachingall sports combined.

The Canes will continue to win, and for several years. That said, if the Bruins tie the series on Sunday afternoon (12:30 p.m.), all the pressure will be on the young shoulders of the Hurricanes when they return to the PNC Arena two days later. The Bruins will have fully regained their confidence, if they haven’t already, and the more the series progresses, the more their expertise in hot moments will stand out.

A two of three against Bergeron, Marchand, Pastrnak and McAvoy? It would be doable for a talented team like the Hurricanes, but certainly not the ideal scenario after dominating the majority of the first two games.