5 hours Ago By Andrew Fantucchio, Boston Hockey Now
The Boston Bruins were shut out by the Nashville Predators on Tuesday by the final score of 4-0. Ryan O’Reilly, Tommy Novak, Gustav Nyquist, and Luke Evangelista took care of the scoring for Nashville, while Juuse Saros made 33 saves in net to capture his first shutout of the season. In goal for Boston, Jeremy Swayman made 38 saves on 41 shots.
But that’s just the box score. Here are the key takeaways from the night that was in Music City. Penalty Problems Persist: The Bruins were already the most penalized team in the NHL entering play on Tuesday and lived up to that reputation by taking X minor penalties against the Predators.
It took only 13 seconds after the opening face-off for David Pastrnak to be called for a hooking penalty, which instantly put the Bruins into a shorthanded situation. By the end of the first 20 minutes, Boston had taken three minor penalties, including two by Max Jones, one of which led to a power play goal for Nashville. The parade to the penalty box didn’t end there for the Bruins.
Nikita Zadorov added to his league lead by taking his X penalty of the year and now has taken at least one in each of his first seven games as a member of the Bruins. Forward Line Changes Prove Futile: Needing to reinvigorate the top of the lineup, Bruins head coach Jim Montgomery through his lines into a blender against Nashville. Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak were reunited, creating a pseudo-perfection line with Elias Lindholm playing the role of Patrice Bergeron.
Charlie Coyle was flanked by Max Jones and Trent Frederic, and Matthew Poitras centered Pavel Zacha and Morgan Geekie. Nevertheless, the changes to the lines made little difference against the Predators, as the Bruins were held off the scoreboard for the first time this season. Heading Home Hanging Their Heads: The Bruins end their road trip with a record of 1-1-1 and will return home to Boston with just three points in hand.
The trip wasn’t an outright disaster on paper, but it’s hard to feel good about the trajectory of the Bruins as their play got progressively worse at each stop along the way. On night one in Denver wasn’t anything pretty, but the Bruins did eventually find their game after an ugly start against the Avalanche. On Saturday in Utah, the Bruins held the lead for the majority of the game, but their sloppy play eventually caught up to them in an overtime loss, and it followed them to Nashville tonight.
This isn’t an issue that began on this trip. Slow starts and a lack of urgency have plagued the Bruins since opening night. It was easy to overlook the issue then, but now that it has begun to persist, it’s time to make some changes.
Bruins Lines: Marchand – E. Lindholm – Pastrnak Jones – Coyle – Frederic Zacha – Poitras – Geekie Beecher – Kastelic – Koepke H. Lindholm – McAvoy Zadorov – Carlo Lohrei – Peeke Swayman Korpisalo Up Next: The Bruins return home to TD Garden on Thursday to host the Dallas Stars.
Puck drop is scheduled for 7 p.m. EST.
This article first appeared on Boston Hockey Now and was syndicated with permission..
