Rebuilding Bruins must tighten up to have any success

If someone stated you the Bruins had pumped in eight goals and gotten good goaltending in two games you might think they d have a little something to show for it No such luck In the last two games the B s looked nothing like the unit that was advertised which might have been OK for the entertainment value but not for their quest to make the playoffs The dilemma was that while they were able to find the back of the net with more frequency than expected against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Monday and then the Vegas Golden Knights on Thursday preponderance of those goals came in desperate catch-up mode after structural deficiencies landed them with three-goal deficits in both games Yes they pushed back and made it uncomfortable for the Bolts and Knights That s commendable But having a high-compete level should be the baseline not the end goal There is no reason to panic of program The B s have gotten beaten by two teams that have more high-end skill then they do and growing pains were inevitable for this group But it might feel a little bit better if they had lost playing their own event than trying to play the one dictated by the opposition After Boston s s - loss to the Golden Knights on Thursday Sturm announced that the problems have already occurred too often They started with the - overtime win over the Chicago Blackhawks that Joonas Korpisalo stole in overtime For me it s a mindset going in Sturm recounted reporters in Vegas after the tournament Do you want to play a - challenge or do you want to play that open tournament We ve done it three out of four games We got lucky once maybe because of goaltending But other than that that s not us Defenseman Charlie McAvoy acknowledged that the band is still learning how to execute the new system It s not how we re going to win We just didn t defend well enough stated McAvoy We knew coming in that they re a good organization they want to attack off the rush they want to make a lot of plays They play a unique style from a lot of teams in this league and they ve got a ton of skill and they made us pay We re trying to understand our system We re trying to figure out what s going to allow us to have success and getting better at it I think we re understanding it We just didn t do enough of it Even the penalty kill perfect up until Thursday sprung several leaks Young Fraser Minten left the passing lane to sniper Pavel Dorofeyev open twice on the same kill and the second one led to a goal Then at the start of the third period Henri Jokihharju allowed William Karlsson to skate unchecked across the top of the crease and tuck it around Jeremy Swayman for what turned out to be the game-winning goal Sturm lamented his gang cheating the event Just easy breakdowns easy mistakes easy mistakes on the reads too explained Sturm Not just from our young guys but from our top guys too And it s hard especially if you re going to play like that in this building it doesn t matter which building if you re going to chase the championship it s hard to come back Indeed the best line on the ice all night was the supposed fourth line of Jeffrey Viel Sean Kuraly and Mark Kastelic Why was it the best line the fourth line urged Sturm Because they did their job they played in their end the whole time they played behind them and they worked That s what we talked about before the event But we only had one line and that was the issue Meanwhile the two top lines were outplayed by Vegas top six plain and simple That s something David Pastrnak who scored on the power play but finished a minus- acknowledged The four even-strength goals were scored while the third or fourth line was on the ice Sturm tweaked the top six flipping Pavel Zacha and Morgan Geekie but it didn t produce anything To be honest if my line and the top six if we had a good tournament we would have had a big chance to win noted Pastrnak The scoring we have to own We weren t there this day We didn t create enough we didn t get on the scoresheet It s a heck of a job from the guys in the bottom of the lineup They played amazing They kept us in the championship pretty much But we have to be better the top two lines We re getting a lot of ice time and we have to create more -on- The good news bad news is that they have another Stanley Cup contender up next to try and fix their issues The B s play the - - Avalanche on Saturday p m at Ball Arena Martin Necas - - and Nathan MacKinnon - - have been a terror on the league in the first week of the season It would behoove the Bruins to be just a little more boring