Brad Marchand gives his honest opinion Boston Bruins play – Source: Getty
Boston Bruins’ captain Brad Marchand offered his frank assessment of what he sees as the recipe for disaster plaguing the team after a 4-0 shutout loss to the Edmonton Oilers. The loss was Boston’s fifth straight and dropped their record to 20-18-5.
Marchand believes the root issues lie in the Bruins getting away from their typical brand of hockey, as he noted:
“We don’t need to score a lot of goals to win games, we need, the way we’ve always tried to win is to be really good defensively and then, you know we need to be comfortable in 2-1, 1-0 games, we’re getting away from that a bit…” (starting at 12:30)
“We are definitely forcing the offense at the wrong areas in the wrong times and it’s backfiring and we’re not playing tight enough defensively, so you know with that combination it’s a recipe for disaster and that’s kind of what’s happened.” he added.
The Oilers opened with Adam Henrique scoring on a wrist shot off a pass from Corey Perry to make it 1-0. Connor McDavid added a power play goal set up by Ryan Nugent-Hopkins in the second on a breakaway.
Then, Henrique scored his second goal of the game from a pass off Jeff Skinner after Charlie Coyle turned over the puck. Viktor Arvidsson scored an empty netter to seal the 4-0 win.
Stuart Skinner stopped 26 shots, while Jeremy Swayman saved 35 shots for the Bruins.
Boston Bruins HC Joe Sacco on 4-0 shutout loss to Oilers
The Boston Bruins had also previously lost to the Oilers 3-2 in overtime earlier this season back in December. After the game, Bruins head coach Joe Sacco voiced his frustration with the team’s performance.
“I just think we have to find some solutions right now. We showed in Edmonton that we played well enough to beat them there,” Sacco said.”We’ve played against some of the top teams in the League and we played well. That was not the case tonight.”
Sacco pointed out that Edmonton won most races to the pucks, displayed greater speed, and emerged victorious in more one-on-one battles.
“So, we pretty much got what we deserved here tonight.” Sacco added.
The Boston Bruins will look to bounce back from this loss when they take on the Tampa Bay Lightning on Thursday night.