BRIGHTON – One of the most dominant characteristics thus far in the Bruce Cassidy era with the Boston Bruins has been strong starts, and thereby playing with a lead while imposing their will on their opponents. The Bruins scored first in each of their first eight games under Cassidy, and had an overwhelming advantage in ice time playing with a lead against opponent after opponent while racking up wins.
The streak of scoring first came to an end in a loss last week to the New York Rangers, and the Black and Gold experienced their worst start under Cassidy when they surrendered two goals to Ottawa in the first four minutes of Monday night’s 4-2 loss to the Senators. The poor starts and lack of readiness to play at the drop of the puck is something that was very prevalent during the first 55 games of the season under Claude Julien, and the exact kind of bad habit the Bruins don’t want to start sliding back into at this point in time.
“The start is huge. It gives them the confidence to rely on their system for the rest of the game, and it forces us to try and make plays that aren’t there. [Ottawa] does a great job of guarding the red line and clogging up the neutral zone, and the game worked out perfectly for them,” said Torey Krug. “[The first goal] has been important for us. It gets the guys excited and it’s something to really get into the game, and something to cheer for early. Obviously it’s important momentum-wise.
"Everybody wants to go out and score the first goal because the statistics prove that if you score first then you have a better chance of winning. For us, it’s about going out and getting your skating legs early. If you get a goal early it provides a little more jump for your team.”
Starting “on time”, as Cassidy likes to say, was clearly a point of emphasis during Tuesday’s video session at Warrior Ice Arena after watching Derick Brassard and Jean-Gabriel Pageau score goals far too easily against Boston to open up the game.
“You’re going to have days like [Ottawa] when things don’t go your way. I think statistics-wise our first period was our best period when you look at the whole period after we got going a little later on,” said Bruce Cassidy. “We weren’t on time at the puck drop, but the first period was a decent period in terms of chances generated. We just gave up the first two goals on some plays where we need to be harder around the slot and we talked about that. They did a better job of getting there than we did boxing out at the end of the day.”
Whatever the interpretation, it’s pretty clear the Bruins are a better, tougher team when they score first, and it needs to return to being a priority when the B’s suit up Wednesday night against the Red Wings on home ice.