Haggerty: Not surprisingly, injuries and schedule catching up to B's

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SUNRISE, Florida – It would seem that the attrition, injuries and grueling, rugged schedule are beginning to chip away at the Bruins. 

It took half of March to get there, but the Bruins looked like a team fighting upstream in a 3-0 loss to the hungry, desperate Florida Panthers Thursday night at the BB&T Center.   

There was no magical third-period comeback to be had in this game and Boston’s top offensive duo of David Pastrnak and Brad Marchand was held to five shots on net (four from Pastrnak) and a minus-3 rating.

That’s the kind of thing that can happen when a team is missing Patrice Bergeron, Charlie McAvoy, Zdeno Chara and Jake DeBrusk to injury and then loses David Backes midway through the first period to a match penalty on a “hitting-from-behind call” call that really didn’t amount to much when you watched replays.

Add all that to a team that's basically been playing every other day for weeks now, and there is inevitably going to be a clunker or two in there. 

Pulling that much quality out of the lineup means that the Bruins probably have to hunker down a little bit defensively and get that extra save from their goaltenders, who have done just that for most of the season.

“You get these nights offensively where it’s not happening, and that’s when you hope that you keep it out of your net,” said Bruce Cassidy. “We’ve scored a lot of goals lately to win hockey games if you look at a lot of the scores. It’s probably going to come around pretty soon where we’re going to need a night like the [Panthers] got where they keep the puck out of our net, and we need the extra save. It’s probably getting to that point.

“You’re not going to score six, or eight, or seven on a regular basis, especially when you start taking some people out of the lineup. So hopefully we turn it around quick and start getting the goals against down to a manageable number.”

Still, despite the missing bodies and the result of zero goals, the Bruins still dominated for long stretches of the game. They also seemed to settle down defensively as the game went along and players adjusted to different linemates and defensive partners as the deck keeps getting reshuffled by injuries.

The B’s launched a whopping 46 shots on net and had offensive chances all over the board with pucks bouncing and rattling around the crease against James Reimer, but that’s when the grinding mentality and the determination become the main ingredients to an effective offense. There is something, however, that’s still pretty impressive about the undermanned, injury-battered B's still controlling play and finishing with an unyielding 20 shots on net in the third period while facing a steep, uphill three-goal climb.

“The bottom line is we had a lot of shots on goal today and no goals. We don’t get any points out of a game that’s a division rival, and a team that we’re going to have to face three times in however many games that we have left,” said Backes. “There were a lot of bouncing pucks around the net where we weren’t able to find the second opportunities where you get a couple of whacks. The one where the puck was behind [Reimer] I think it was Jonathan Huberdeau that was back there for whatever reason and able to keep it out of the net.

“That might be a turning point for us if we get a squeaker like that to go in. [There was] another one where [David Pastrnak] tries to whack it in from his belly, but the puck just goes across the other side of the crease. There were other chances we just couldn’t corral the puck, and they were able to clear it out and relieve the pressure for the time being. They did a good job of defending the front of the net as far as getting to loose pucks and getting them out of there.”

Certainly, the Bruins are going to need to be better on Saturday night when they ready for the trip's finale in Tampa Bay, one of three games against the Atlantic Division-leading rivals in the final 13 games of the regular season. If the injury-plagued Bruins want any chance of actually catching and surpassing the Bolts, then they’ll need to make a strong showing in their head-to-head showdowns and a perfunctory effort like the one in Florida simply isn’t going to work.

It might not be the shape that the Bruins wanted to be in when it comes down to these final games against Tampa Bay this season, but the odds are strong they’ll be ready regardless based on the way they’ve flat-out battled this season.

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