It wasn’t Connor McDavid that burned the Bruins on Thursday. It was the Bruins themselves.
"We had it, it was in our hands. We dropped the ball."
Jim Montgomery kept things brief when posed a simple question about an insoluble undertaking.
Because if there was a proper formula that teams could follow to keep Connor McDavid contained, it hasn’t translated onto the scoresheet.
“Yeah, don’t let him touch the puck,” Montgomery said Wednesday at Warrior Ice Arena. “That’s what we learned. What can you say? I thought we played a really good game last time. He still had two goals and he still made three passes for one-timers. He’s kind of like Michael Jordan, right?
“You don’t stop him, you hope to contain him. So we held him to two points. It’s slightly above his average. … So tomorrow night, hopefully [we] hold him to one goal or one assist.”
Montgomery’s players did even better against the best talent in the game.
For just the seventh time all season, McDavid recorded zeros on the box score during Thursday’s matchup at TD Garden.
For those keeping track, the uber-skilled pivot has more games with 4-point performances (nine) than goose eggs.
Whenever No. 97 hopped over the boards, Patrice Bergeron and his line wasn’t far behind, along with Boston’s new top defensive unit of Charlie McAvoy and Dmitry Orlov.
Boston’s forecheck kept McDavid frustrated. The B’s structured defense steered the offensive conduit east-to-west through the neutral zone.
And for their efforts, the Bruins – much like McDavid — had little to show for it.
Well, except McDavid still left the Garden ice with the most important stat line of them all: two points in the standings.
Boston’s 10-game win streak didn’t come to a crashing end on Thursday because of another tour-de-force performance from McDavid or Leon Draisaitl in the offensive zone.
Rather, it was a dangerous mix of unforced errors and passive play that handed the B’s their first loss on home ice since Feb. 11.
“In the third, we just didn’t play our game at all,” Brad Marchand said following Boston’s 3-2 loss to Edmonton. “And the goals [they] got, we kind of shot ourself in the foot. So uncharacteristic of us, but one we can learn from.”
It was fitting on a night where McDavid couldn’t make a scoring dent that a defensive stalwart like Bergeron took on water in Boston’s own zone.
A 4-on-1 snipe from Evan Bouchard (the result of Matt Grzelcyk blowing a tire) and a point-shot tally from Darnell Nurse (that Jeremy Swayman didn’t track amid of a crash of bodies down low) were tough breaks for Boston.
But when someone like Bergeron sends a puck into no man’s land (leading to an equalizer goal from Ryan McLeod just seconds later), it may not be your night.
“I think he holds himself accountable more than anybody else,” Montgomery said of Bergeron’s miscue. “I mean, that’s the first time I’ve seen him make a mistake. I’m gonna let it go on that one.”
Montgomery and the Bruins won’t fret over an occasional D-zone lapse, especially from someone with Bergeron’s resume.
But down the other end of the ice, Montgomery and his players were more concerned with what the Bruins managed to muster against a permeable Oilers defense.
“We were a very non-competitive team, offensively, tonight,” Montgomery said. “I guess that’s the best way to say it.”
Be it failing to generate quality looks on the forecheck or passing up on volleys toward Stuart Skinner in search of the perfect play, the Bruins’ potent offense did little to expose the evident flaws on a top-heavy Oilers roster.
For Bergeron, the task of keeping both McDavid and Draisaitl in check means little if the rest of Edmonton’s lineup is landing punches in the offensive zone.
“I mean, you have to be aware,” Bergeron said of McDavid. “He’s all-class. He’s the best player in the world. I don’t think Draisaitl is too far behind. So we know that offense and you try to take that away. That being said, tonight was the other guys. So yeah, you do a good job, but then you can’t let the other lines — they have some good talent on the other lines and that’s where they scored their goals.
“I think it’s one of those things, you need to focus on [McDavid and Draisaitl] and it needs to be part of your pregame [work]. But that being said, it’s throughout the lineup. You need to be good against every line.”
Thursday was a stark reminder of the gamble that teams tend to make when matching up against McDavid and the Oilers.
The Bruins’ collective defensive effort held up its end with its most-pressing assignment.
But that meant very little when McDavid’s supporting cast buried the many chances doled out to them.
“They’re not gonna roll over, they did a good job of pushing back,” Marchand said of Edmonton. “What they got, we kind of gave them. I don’t think they dominated the period or anything like that. So definitely, we had it, it was in our hands. We dropped the ball.”
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