BOSTON – Claude Julien had just a one word response when questioned why Brad Marchand never got called off the bench for the failed five round shootout loss to the Carolina Hurricanes on Tuesday night.
The B’s bench boss gave a terse “hindsight” when the subject of his leading goal-scorer came up after the damaging 2-1 shootout loss at TD Garden to a Canes team that will be setting up tee times a week from now.
That’s really not good enough of an explanation for a coach leaving his best bullets in the Black and Gold gun in the form of his 36-goal scorer never factoring into the shootout session. It’s the same frustration with Marchand not being considered for the top power play unit despite his scoring prowess, and finishing with the 7th highest ice time on the power play in the loss to Carolina.
Instead Ryan Spooner, Patrice Bergeron, David Pastrnak, Loui Eriksson and Torey Krug failed to score before Carolina rookie D-man Noah Hanifin flipped a backhanded bid under the bar for the game-winning goal.
Julien said he was merely going with the percentages, his feel for that game and what he sees on the handful of occasions when the Bruins practice the shootout through the season.
“It’s a little bit of everything. We do it in practice, and it’s all taken care of. With the tendencies of the goaltender, I’ve answered that question before, and it’s all based on that,” said Julien. “If people want to use hindsight, that’s all there is, but we make those decisions, again. I think the guys that went have scored in the shootout and done a great job before. But because they didn’t score tonight, we can second guess all we want.”
Sure, Marchand is 0-for-3 in the shootout this season, and Torey Krug has scored at times when called upon in the shootout. But Krug hasn’t scored a goal since early December amidst the worst goal-scoring funk of his NHL career, and Marchand has been one of the best, and most dangerous, players in a Bruins uniform all season.
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It’s not difficult to see why the Bruins lack a little urgency in these do-or-die games when Julien isn’t yet ready to throw away playing the percentages, and instead simply ride his best players at every possible turn. The Bruins agitator said all the right things after the game was over, and was instead kicking himself for not finishing on his scoring chance in the second period while all alone in front of the net.
“I was kind of hoping it didn’t come to that. I was hoping that we’d get there [before the shootout], so I wasn’t even really thinking about it,” said Marchand. “I’m just happy to be on the power play at all, and I’m going to do whatever the team asks me to do, regardless of what that is. I’m just going to try and play my role.”
Marchand’s biggest role on the team this season has been top goal-scorer with an outside chance to still get to 40 goals this season, so perhaps it’s time he’s viewed that way by a coaching staff that needs to start featuring him offensively at every turn.