Some old concerns on Bruins creep back in

The Bruins 8-1 loss to the Winnipeg Jets was bad.

There is no way around that fact.

But the question is, as the Bs ready themselves to continue their five-game road trip in Seattle on Thursday, how big of a bite did the rout take out of the teams growing belief in itself? Going into Tuesdays game, the Bs had played nine games since Jim Montgomery was removed and Joe Sacco was installed as head coach, going 7-2 and being competitive in every game.

Tuesdays defeat was the first lopsided loss since Sacco took over.

But it felt so much like some of the bad losses to good teams the Bs had suffered with Montgomery.

There were too many penalties and not good enough penalty-killing.

There was porous slot defense.

There was bad goaltending.

And there was a fragility, present in a lot of the losses under Montgomery, that returned.

It doesnt matter a lick now, but the Bruins actually started the game well, despite taking a penalty in the first minute.

Connor Hellebuyck had to be sharp.

But when Brandon Carlo took a double minor midway through the first and the Jets scored on a bad bounce goal one of the few goals on which Swayman had no chance the Bs could not regain their footing.

By early in the second period, they were down 3-0 and the chance of a comeback was non-existent with Hellebuyck in the net at the other end.

It was a sobering loss, for sure, especially given the fact that much of their confidence was built on playing teams not in the playoff bracket.

Will it be a damaging one? Well get a better idea of that on Thursday in Seattle.

Captain Brad Marchand, who was not immune to the team-wide poor play, said he wasnt too surprised.

This was coming, Marchand told reporters in Winnipeg immediately after the game.

Our practices have been sloppy, our execution has been off there and it bleeds into games.

How you practice is how you play.

It starts there and we havent been good enough, so we need to do a better job of being good in practice and itll translate into games.

As Marchand said, there were problems all around.

The Mason Lohrei-Andrew Peeke defense pair was minus-3.

Marchand himself had a bad turnover on the Jets fourth goal that served as the coffin nail.

And Swayman, whose job it is to cover up at least some of the warts on nights like this, was not good.

Again.

He allowed a career-high eight goals.

His save percentage is now .885 and his GAA is 3.27.

Thats not nearly good enough for a player who signed an eight-year, $66 million contract to be a bona fide No.

1 goalie.

Asked if he feels for Swayman being left in the whole game (and to be fair, the bottom didnt truly fall out till he allowed two goals 10 seconds apart in the final four minutes), Marchand wasnt giving out any passes.

Not really, said Marchand.

Everyone had a bad night and he was part of it.

Hes not singled out.

I dont think anyone can look at the mirror and say that they had a good game.

Hes part of the group, hes part of the bad loss.

Where do they go from here? One bad loss and, yes, well still consider this one loss because its the first bad one under Sacco does not warrant big changes.

But if the issues in Winnipeg carry over to Seattle and then Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton? Well, it may soon be time to give 20-year-old Matt Poitras another look.

Hes been heating up in Providence, where he now has 3-7-10 totals in 11 games and hes their best prospect thats on the cusp.

Beyond that, theres not much internally the Bs can do.

Barring a major trade, they just have to play better.

And for their psyche, they could really use a win over a quality opponent.

Those have been rare in this season that with each loss to the Winnipegs, Dallases and Carolinas of the league is increasingly feeling like a transitional one.

And if thats the determination, then there is not much that would be off the table.

...

Depending on your perspective of how you viewed the third period fights and theres been a lot of criticism for Trent Frederic dropping the gloves with non-fighter David Gustafsson the Bs did not go down completely without a fight.

How much value there is in that moving forward remains to be seen.

The guys played hard right to the end, thats all were asking, Sacco told reporters after Wednesdays practice in Seattle.

We just want to make sure theres no quit in our game, especially in the third period when things are getting...

its 4-1, 5-1, we just want to make sure that were playing the right way and guys are playing hard.

Mark Kastelic also went with Logan Stanley and, with the Jets fuming, Nikita Zadorov and captain Adam Lowry went at i.

t...

The Bruins lost a little organizational depth on defense when the Edmonton Oilers claimed Alec Regula from waivers.

Regula has been rehabbing a knee injury all season and, now healthy, the Bs had to expose him to waivers to send him to Providence.

Regula, a 24-year-old obtained in the salary-clearing Taylor Hall trade with Chicago in the summer of 2023, had a good season in Providence last year with a plus-36 rating and 4-22-26 totals, though he didnt get a call-up to Boston..

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