Bruins Sleepwalk Through Detroit Loss as Injuries Expose Leadership Gap | Snap Shot 65

0:00 How many times do you think the Bruins can touch the bottom? We've seen them hit rock bottom, and they've flirted with it a few times already. But last night's game was just shy, just shy of an all out embarrassment. The officiating was ridiculous, and Boston just didn't seem to have the energy or desire to be engaged in the contest until it was too late. So they head back to the Garden to face off against their old coach and a team that is worse for wear. How will this team get it together in a leadership vacuum without David Posternock and Charlie McAvoy.

0:36 This is a Bruins tape to tape snapshot. Listless, lazy, and uninspired. Those are the adjectives that I will use to describe the effort by the majority of the Boston Bruins roster, including the goaltender, in a game against the Detroit Red Wings on Tuesday night, which they lost five to four. The Boston Bruins played very little good hockey throughout the first two periods of that game, and while I'm not going to lay the loss totally at the feet of Jeremy Swayman, he did not have one of his better games.

1:14 As a matter of fact, Swayman ended up getting pulled in the third period of the game after Detroit scored their fifth goal. When you spot a team in the NHL a three to nothing lead in the first period and you're not playing a brand of hockey which dictates winning puck battles, moving your feet and staying out of the penalty box, then I don't see how you stand a snowball's chance in hell in winning that game. And that is exactly what happened to the Boston Bruins on Tuesday night. And I have a message for Hampus, lind Home, Hampus, you are going to wind up with the biggest pile of coal in your stocking if you don't stop taking penalties.

1:58 Now, there were a couple of good things during the course of that game. In that Jonathan Asparo got his first goal as a Boston Bruin, Steve's scored two goals, and the Bruins did, for a very short period of time make it a game when they pulled to within three to two. However, the Boston Bruins doing Boston Bruins things allowed the Detroit Red Wings to score a quick goal which made it four to two. After the Red Wings scored their fifth goal of the game, Jeremy Swayman was pulled from the game and Jonas Corposalo took the net instead.

2:38 Now they lost an opportunity to gain additional points. However, what I will say about this team is we have seen this season than that when they suffer losses such as the loss they suffered in Detroit, they generally have bounced back in the next game. Nobody's favorite goalie, Jordan Bennington, has had a terrible season thus far. I love that for him, and not just because of the team in front of him. He's got a minus five point six GSAX eighteen games in with his eight seventy eight savee percentage and over three goals against average, It's no wonder Jim Montgomery pulled him the other night, much to Bennington's Let's say dismay.

3:21 Now we've seen this Boston Bruins team turn plenty of crappy and no name goalies into resident candidates. But let's hope that doesn't happen on Thursday night. I'd be surprised if Swiman gets the net after his awful performance in Detroit, so look for Corpusolo. Saint Louis only has nine wins thus far this season. They play a very boring brand of hockey and are currently holding a negative sixteen goal differential. But remember, just because they're bad doesn't mean that they don't have good individual players.

3:52 Boston's big weakness this year is their inability to smother and shut down opponents' key players with any kind of consistency. Jake Nabors has been their most impactful sniper, with a one point one two expected goals per sixty minutes, and he's producing one point six per sixty. Dylan Holloway, Jordan Cairou, and Justin Falk round out their top goal scorers. Each of them has six to seven goals apiece. The player I'm most excited for to follow in Boston at this point is Alex Steves. He seemingly has come out of nowhere and has blossomed in the big league since his arrival last month.

4:30 He's quickly become tied for fourth in goals on the team, and he is everywhere, and with his most recent game in Detroit, he officially has played enough NHL games that he would be required to clear waivers if Boston decided to send him back down to Providence. As Maria mentioned, the Bees often do come back after a bad stretch, but losing these winnable games and taking an absurd amount of penalties will only continue to chip away at the team's odds of making the postseason, even at this point in early December, make sure you rate and review the podcast to help us reach more listeners, and tune in weekly to our full podcast, available on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and all podcast platforms.