It was a little wonderful to see a flurry of lineup changes for the Bruins at the puck drop for Game 3 on Wednesday night, and clearly it did not work based on the blowout 7-1 loss at the hands of the Tampa Bay Lightning .
Bruce Cassidy made a little more explanation about the lineup on Thursday morning, while the Bruins still “leaked their wounds” to fall to 2-1 in the best-of-seven series.
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Fourth-line center Sean Kuraly is recovering from an injury and could not go to Game 3 to play a key role in getting the Bs to extra time in Game 2. He was the “decision over time” that Cassidy referred to at first talk about going with 11 strikers and 7 defenders for Game 3, but there were obviously more changes apart from just replacing Kuraly.
Cassidy pulled Kuraly and the inconsistent Anders Bjork, who played a bit light in a tough series against Tampa Bay, off the attacking squad and added angry Par Lindholm, who was ultimately on the ice for three goals against Power Play scored against Boston in the loss.
On defense, Cassidy chose to scrap Connor Clifton and include rookie Jeremy Lauzon and veteran John Moore in the lineup. B. Lauzon has not played in the Carolina series since early and Moore has not played since the round robin games a few weeks ago. Cassidy admitted that Clifton was a decision by a coach with the intention of getting more bulk to battlefields in what was a highly contested series up to this point.
‘Yes, Clifton [was a coach’s decision], we put in Moore and Lauzon. I will not go into all the specifications. Each team has the things they deal with internally. We went the seven-D route. We protect ourselves against … what if the game hits? We went into overtime the night before, three in four nights. Again, a few bumps and bruises. That was the decision. Bigger boys. “I thought after Game 2 we should not check better in front of us,” said Cassidy. “We did not do a good enough job there. Larger bodies can sometimes help. It did not work out that way.
“Cliffy has been fine, Lauzy has been fine, Moore – I’ve said it before, they are all, we feel our state number six [defensemen]. We used several guys in that role. As before [Kuraly], he has to deal with an injury he could not, we were not sure. Of course, he’s a part of our kill that we miss, especially in the face-off circle. We have only two left, he and Lindholm. That, you miss that part of it. At the end of the day, you have to move on. We still have murderers who were just not able to get the job done last night. ”
Some of the decisions were understandable, but it’s hard to get on board playing Moore instead of Clifton, given how good the young D-man has been at stepping into the offensive zone, playing physical hockey play and agitate the best players of the other team.
At this point, Clifton is still the only Bruins defender to have a goal in this postseason and that says as much about Clifton’s play as it does anyone else in the Boston Blue Group now.
