“We hit some posts and missed some great opportunities tonight,’’ said coach Claude Julien after the Bruins’ 2-0 loss, the second straight time his team has been blanked. “Somehow you’re going to have to make it happen if you want to turn this thing around. Simple as that. It’s up to us to decide how tired we are of losing games that we hear we’re playing OK in and do something about it.’’
Hard work got Sturm to the edge of the crease on his two-whack flurry. Good effort by Blake Wheeler set up Michael Ryder for a cannon of a one-timer in the second period. Nonstop legs by Shawn Thornton got the lunchpail winger a wraparound attempt on Osgood in the sec ond.
But for the Bruins, that last stage - turning a scoring chance into a goal - is proving elusive. They charge into the dirty areas. They get their looks on goal. But when it comes time to putting pucks over the goal line, they look around and see a roster of players that, right now, simply can’t finish to save their lives.
It doesn’t help that the power play, without the sublime quarterbacking skills of Marc Savard on the right-side half-wall, is lifeless. Julien introduced major changes, pairing Derek Morris and Dennis Wideman as point men on the first unit, with Bergeron, David Krejci, and Mark Recchi down low. For the second unit, Julien rolled out Matt Hunwick for the first time this season, putting him with Zdeno Chara on the point, then throwing out Wheeler, Brad Marchand, and Vladimir Sobotka down low.
The end result: two shots during six minutes of power-play time.
“We’ve got guys who’ve scored goals in bunches in this league,’’ said Wheeler, who skated with old linemates Ryder and Krejci for the first time since Oct. 12. “It’s more of a when it rains, it pours type of thing.
“For us right now, we’re in a pretty dry spell. There’s no need to panic. Our game is really good everywhere except for the reward part.’’
But that’s the rub, isn’t it? Scoring more goals than the other team? Yes, the Bruins are without Savard and Milan Lucic, and if you throw in that guy named Phil Kessel (10 shots in his Toronto debut last night), that’s the entire No. 1 line from last season.
