Fans have every right to feel disappointed, upset, or downright discouraged after Boston’s 4–1 loss to the Ottawa Senators. It’s one thing when the effort is there — but what unfolded Monday night at TD Garden was something else entirely.
Last season, when the Bruins hit their first rough patch, my immediate thought was that the schedule was to blame — the lack of practice time was clearly affecting their game, and that ultimately proved true. But while playing three games in four nights again leaves no room for meaningful practice, this stretch feels different.
The absence of Charlie McAvoy impacts nearly every facet of Boston’s game. Without their top defenseman, others are forced into roles above their natural thresholds — and that’s rarely a winning formula. The truly elite teams find ways to absorb that kind of loss and keep pushing. This group isn’t at that level.
If you’re Frederic Brunet or Matthew Poitras making your season debuts, you’d have every reason to be frustrated with the effort around you. When you finally get into the lineup and want to make a strong impression on the coaching staff, and the team comes out as flat as it did, it becomes awfully hard to showcase much of anything.
Brunet, to his credit, at least flashed some of what he can bring despite the limited runway. On a night that rough, he still looked sharper than Jonathan Aspirot did across his first three games.
The special teams continue to be a problem — especially the power play, which is now 0‑for‑10 on the season. Morgan Geekie, Pavel Zacha, and David Pastrnak have yet to score, and both Zacha and Casey Mittelstadt are still looking for their first point.
As a group, they’re trying to force passes that simply aren’t there, and those reads almost always turn into turnovers. And on the rare occasion a pass does sneak through, the receiver usually can’t handle it cleanly, killing whatever momentum they had.
James Hagens scored the team’s lone goal, but he also had a couple of tough defensive moments that proved costly. He knew it, he owned it, and he’ll learn from it — that accountability is part of why his trajectory remains so strong.
We wanted the Bruins to play the kids, and while they deserve a slice of the blame for what we’re seeing, the problems run far deeper than that.
Will practice time help clean up some of the issues? In theory, it should. But no amount of practice is going to fix problems tied to effort or decision‑making. That responsibility falls on the players — all of them — and especially the veterans and leaders of this group.
–
This roster is inherently disjointed. Geekie looks alarmingly lost. Pasta is still not in his best groove, needs the right line or to get his head clear. The lines just don’t fit together well. Maybe they should get a 1C???