Bruins’ 3 stars of the week: Dominic Moore stands out during skid
COMMENTARY
Trying to find positives in a Bruins’ three-game losing streak in which they were outscored 15-4 by the Canadiens, Wild and Rangers is difficult. Despite the results, we’ve managed to find a few Bruins who performed fairly well for this week’s edition of 3 Stars:
Dominic Moore
Outside of Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand, David Pastrnak and David Backes, the Bruins have not found a rhythm in their secondary scoring. The only depth player who has stood out in the early going has been Dominic Moore.
Signing with the Bruins in August, Moore was brought in to add some stability to the bottom six. Through the first seven games, the former Harvard standout has been a regular on the Bruins’ penalty kill. He is also showing a solid defensive game and a decent offensive touch, scoring twice while averaging between 12 and 13 minutes per night.
While Moore has been a good story early, the Bruins are going to need a lot more from their third and fourth lines, an assessment head coach Claude Julien made after Saturday’s 4-2 loss to the Canadiens.
“Well, you need something out of them besides minuses,” Julien said. “There’s no doubt, and we had, more or less, three lines that are creating some sort of momentum. We need them to step up there and help us out. That would make a huge difference to our team.”
Brandon Carlo
With the defense in flux entering the 2016-17 season, the Bruins were hoping one of their young prospects would stand out and compete for a roster spot. Amidst all of their issues over the past three games, they may have found their guy.
Skating with Zdeno Chara in the Bruins’ top defensive pair, Brandon Carlo is fitting in nicely with the captain. As a matter of fact, Carlo is the one Bruins blue-liner who is standing out among the struggling defensive core.
From blocking shots to clearing bodies in front of the net, Carlo is showing poise in his own zone. The 6-foot-5 native of Colorado Springs also has a goal and assist to go with a plus-5 rating and has notched more than 20 minutes of ice time in six of the Bruins’ seven games, including a season-high 24:30 against the Rangers on Wednesday night.
Surely, Carlo will go through some growing pains, just like the rest of the Bruins’ defense. In the meantime, he is doing a relatively fine job showcasing his potential.
Tuukka Rask
The third Bruin on this week’s list didn’t play a single game during this losing skid. I guess there were some points accumulated by Tuukka Rask for not being suspect in the Bruins’ struggles.
Surely the Bruins’ defense left Anton Khudobin, Malcolm Subban and Zane McIntyre out to dry for the most part. With Rask nursing a lower body injury, the last thing the B’s work-in-progress blue-line needed was missed assignments, communication breakdowns and sloppy entry passes in transition. But that’s exactly what happened.
Rask alone may not have solved the issues on the back end over the last three games. On the other hand, here are some telling stats on state of the Bruins’ goaltending. Through three games, the 2014 Vezina winner is a perfect 3-0-0 with a 1.67 goals against average and .947 save percentage. The combined numbers for Khudobin, Subban and McIntyre? 0-4-0, 4.50 goals against average and a save percentage of .780.
For all of the fans in the “trade Tuukka” crowd, weeks like this one are an indication of why such a move is not a good idea.
Rask returned to practice Friday morning and may be good enough to make his return Saturday night in Detroit.
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