Boston Bruins vs Ducks Recap: Missed Chances, McAvoy Out, Kings Preview | Snap Shot 63

0:00 Speaker 1: Stop me if you've heard this one before. Twenty guys fly to the West Coast, work really hard, but fail to take advantage of easy opportunities and let a win slip from their grasp. Yep, that's right. This Bruins road trip has started out as a copy paste of their last Western trip. But with key guys hurt and out of the lineup, can the young guns pick up the slack and keep Boston at second in the Atlantic. This is a Bruins tape to tape snapshot.

0:29 Speaker 2: The Boston Bruins started their West Coast trip on Wednesday night with a four to three loss to the Anaheim Ducks. The bad news with regard to the start of this trip is that it appears that the Bruins will be likely without Charlie McAvoy as a result of having some quote unquote facial surgery, as was put by Marco Sturm. Good news is that Elias Lindholm did travel with the team to the West Coats coast, and the hope is that he'll slot back into the lineup at some point. The game itself against the Anaheim Ducks, to me, was won and lost in the first period by the Boston Bruins.

1:10 Speaker 2: The Bruins got down two to nothing quickly to the Anaheim Ducks, and although they were able to cut the score to two to one in that first period, they were unable to capitalize on scoring opportunities that presented themselves. And credit to the Anaheim Ducks goaltender Lucas Dostell, who was absolutely excellent in that game against the Bruins. The Bruins were statistically the better team in that game, but unfortunately a couple of defensive lapses is what cost the Bruins points in this game.

1:48 Speaker 2: And I have some motherly advice for the Boston Bruins. You have all worked so hard to get yourself into a playoff posi position and at the top of the Atlantic Division standings. Don't miss out on opportunities to take points away. We are not expecting you to win every game on a road trip, or on this road trip in particular, but a game such as you played against the Anaheim Ducks where you walk away with simply no points is not going to help your cause in trying to stay at the top of the standings.

2:30 Speaker 1: The Bruins stayed in Southern California after last night's loss and they face a dark horse in the La Kings. They may have had a slow start, but this Kings team is making sure that Copaitar's farewell tour is a memorable one one thing in Boston's favor. They're hanging out in LA waiting for the Kings to come home from a trip to the Bay Area where they play the Sharks on Thursday and then immediately the Bees on Friday night. Probably explains the ten thirty pm Eastern seven thirty pm Pacific start time.

2:59 Speaker 1: In fact, not only are the Kings playing the Bruins on the second night of a back to back, it's the King's first game home off of a six game mostly East Coast road trip, so maybe they'll be extra tired. This could be quite the battle of the goaltenders if we see Kemper and Net against Swayman. I'm actually curious to see which goalie they play in San Jose and which in LA. That might tell us how much of a threat they think Boston is. If it is Kemper and Net, he's been doing exceptionally well. Both he and Swayman have nearly identical stats at this point in the season, a sub three goals against over nine hundred safe percentage and they both have over ten GSAX.

3:37 Speaker 1: Go read the substack post to put out this past weekend about GSAX and why you should be using it in your evaluation of goalies from here on. Out link is in the notes. On the skater side of things, the Kings are considered pretty even in their playing style, if maybe a little boring. They've struggled much of the season so far, with their gold differentials only just going into the positive on November thirteenth, But don't let that fool you. With players like Perry and Fiala seriously overperforming when it comes to goal scoring and can be shooting like his life depends on it, the Bruins are going to have to figure out a way to get on top of prime opportunities.

4:13 Speaker 1: Again. Remember our expectation during the losing streak was that if Boston could just manage one more goal on the power play, or take advantage of just one more opportunity, no matter what it is, it could really change the outcome of the game. They've got the right drive, persistence, and overall attitude. They just need to capitalize on it.

4:34 Speaker 3: Now.

4:35 Speaker 1: There might not be another snapshot this week with such late starts, so tune into our full episodes on Tuesdays, and don't forget to rate and review the podcast to help us reach more listeners, and tune in weekly to our full podcast, available on Apple.

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