B's Fall to Flyers in Return to Game Action

BostonBruins.com - The Bruins' return to real, meaningful hockey did not go as planned on Sunday afternoon.

After a solid first period, the Black & Gold struggled mightily to muster up much energy over the final two frames, leading to a 4-1 setback at the hands of the Philadelphia Flyers in their opening round-robin contest at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto.

"I think we all realize we can do better," said Bruins captain Zdeno Chara. "Simplify certain plays, managing the puck and making better decisions with the puck…it's something that we want to improve moving forward. We need to realize at this time, everybody is fresh and feeling good about their game. We just need to play a more simple game."

The loss came on the heels of a similarly disappointing defeat in the team's lone exhibition game on Thursday night against the Columbus Blue Jackets. After four-plus months away from game action, the Bruins know they must quickly find their way as they try to position themselves with the best seed possible heading into the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

"Parts of it were good. We were willing to compete on pucks, discipline was pretty good for the most part in terms of staying out of the box," said Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy. "Some details with the puck, turnovers that came back to bite us. Lack of a shot mentality, trying to make the extra pass. As I said before, there's a bit of carryover from probably the previous two, three weeks.

"When you've just been off that long, you're not in that keep it simple mode yet. That's what cost us the hockey game. It wasn't that we broke down all over the ice. We made some individual mistakes. We're going to have to correct those."

While the Black & Gold want to be the highest seed possible after claiming the Presidents' Trophy as the league's best regular-season team, they know the silver lining of the round-robin format is that they can also use the three games to build themselves up before elimination becomes a factor.

"Until you reach that perfect game, you're always striving for it," said Torey Krug. "Right now, we have to change some things. We've got to get a little bit greasier and raise our compete level. Manage the time and score. It's playoff hockey. Just because it doesn't start for us in a series, we've got to start building our game in the right way.

"If we don't, we'll be showing up to Game 1 of the first series not feeling comfortable. We have some things to pick up and fix and you can count on this group to do that."

Clean It Up

The Bruins appeared to have that urgency in the early going, outshooting Philadelphia, 12-6, during a solid first period. The Flyers, however, had the far superior second period, opening up a 2-0 lead by the midway point of the middle frame. Many of the issues, Cassidy explained, stemmed from Boston trying to be a bit too fine with their playmaking.

"We need to make a better [freaking] play with the puck, is what I'm thinking, in some of those situations that we're capable of doing," said Cassidy. "That's what needed to be done tonight and we'd probably be out of trouble here. It would have probably been a 1-1 game. It looked like it towards the end.

"We need to make better plays with the puck, be stronger on it, take care of it, more urgency. You can use any adjective you want. That's to me, what was the difference in the game."

Wagner Gets One

The Bruins got on the board late in the second period when Chris Wagner took a Joakim Nordstrom feed and banked one past Flyers goalie Carter Hart for his first of the postseason. The tally pulled Boston within 2-1 and, in the moment, looked as if it would provide a bit of a boost to a sputtering offense.

But Philadelphia responded off the ensuing faceoff when Philippe Myers took advantage of a neutral zone turnover and ripped one by Jaroslav Halak just eight seconds later to give the Flyer back a two-goal advantage.

"I thought that shift was good for us. That's kind of our brand of hockey, as far as getting the puck in," said Wagner, who skated alongside familiar linemates Joakim Nordstrom and Sean Kuraly. "I think we probably had four or five hits, a couple of shots from the point, recovered a puck and then I got a lucky bounce off a skate. That's kind of what we were striving for."

Halak Subs In

Halak got the call in place of Tuukka Rask, who has not been feeling well over the past few days, and made 24 saves on 28 shots. It was Halak's first postseason start since April 2015 for the New York Islanders.

"We needed more stops, obviously. The breakdowns - they were all good goals, good shots. Maybe the second one got through him," said Cassidy. "I don't know. It looked like a screen from [Jeremy] Lauzon. Other than that, they were good shots. But obviously when we're only putting up one goal ourselves, we needed more saves.

"Usually you look at a goalie, did he give up bad goals? No. Did we need a few extra saves in this situation today? Yes. At the end of the day, they were breakdowns that happened well before the puck came to him. Again, I thought he was fine. If we were going to win, we needed a few extra saves."

Cassidy said after the game that he is hoping for Rask to be back between the pipes for the B's second round-robin game on Wednesday against the Tampa Bay Lightning.

"We expect and hope that he'll be back in the net Wednesday," said Cassidy. "Let's see if he's on the ice [on Monday], probably give you a better idea then, how he's feeling. And we'll go from there with Tuukka.

"Obviously, he's an important part of our team. My understanding is that he is feeling better, but I've been at the rink all day, so I obviously haven't talked to him."