Talking Points from the Bruins’ 6-4 loss to the Blackhawks…
GOLD STAR: Patrick Kane was a “no show” in the Blackhawks game in Boston, but he showed up in a big way against the Bruins on Sunday. He finished with a hat trick and four points that pushed him over the 100-point mark for the season, and served as another reminder of the outstanding individual season he’s enjoying in Chicago. Kane and Artemi Panarin teamed up for the four goals, and ripped the Bruins defense to shreds in the first two periods while creating an insurmountable six-goal hill for Boston to climb in their comeback attempts. Kane finished with a plus-3 rating and six shot attempts in 21:16 of ice time, and none of the Bruins defenders had any hopes of stopping him while he was going.
BLACK EYE: Joe Morrow looked like a wide-eyed rookie against the Blackhawks in a game where they simply couldn’t afford to have those kinds of performances. It was his turnover on a lazy D-to-D pass at the offensive blue line during 4-on-4 play that was picked off by Patrick Kane, and turned into an unassisted goal in the closing minutes of the first period. That gave the Blackhawks a 2-0 lead, and led to a minus-2 performance in just 13 minutes of ice time for Morrow at a time when the B’s needed players to step up in the absence of Kevan Millerand Dennis Seidenberg. Morrow needs to be much better than that…plain and simple.
TURNING POINT: The Bruins might have had a chance to recover from a bad first period where they were down by a 2-0 score, but instead they gave up another goal just 54 seconds into the second period. Adam McQuaid couldn’t lift Patrick Kane’s stick on a redirection from Artem Anisimov, and he scored his second of three goals during the game. That was pretty much it for the Black and Gold despite scoring four unanswered goals that got them back into the game. There were poor line changes, a too many men on the ice penalty and other pieces of evidence that the Bruins weren’t ready to go on Sunday afternoon. There’s no excuse for that given Boston’s situation.
HONORABLE MENTION: Patrice Bergeron finished with two goals and three points, and was only on the ice for one goal against in the six-goal barrage scored against the Bruins. He finished a plus-2 in 18:49 of ice time, seven shots on goal, 10 shot attempts overall and was the biggest factor in the B’s even giving themselves a chance in the third period. Bergeron also finished with 14-of-25 face-off wins in the typical Bergeron effort when locked up against Jonathan Toews most of the time, but it wasn’t enough to get the B’s anywhere close to the needed two points against Chicago. Though Bergeron clearly wasn’t to blame for the loss, it’s also tough giving anybody from the Bruins credit after a defeat like Sunday afternoon’s debacle.
BY THE NUMBERS: 96 – the maximum number of points that the Bruins can get if they win out for the rest of the season, which is also a point total that wasn’t good enough for the playoffs last season.
QUOTE TO NOTE: "For me, I thought we had our legs. I thought we competed hard. We didn't have our brains." –Claude Julien to reporters, identifying the problem after dropping a 6-4 decision at the hands of the Blackhawks.