Brad Marchand blasts Bruins for having too many 'passengers'
Brad Marchand is not shy about pestering players on the ice, and he is not shy about speaking his mind off of it either. The Bruins' winger blasted the team's effort after a 5-4 loss to the Sharks on Tuesday night.
"I think right now if we’re going to get out of this and we’re going to start putting a few wins together, we have to have everyone going every night and we can’t have any passengers at all," Marchand told reporters after the game. "If we have one, that’s enough to cost us a game. And right now, we have way too many."
The Bruins have lost five of their last seven games and are now 2-6-1 at home. The team's commitment in its own zone was sorely lacking Tuesday night, and they allowed nine high-quality scoring chances to the Sharks while generating just one of their own, according to war-on-ice.com. They made numerous mental mistakes which put the Sharks on the power play and did not play a tight enough game on the penalty kill, allowing two power-play goals to San Jose.
Marchand's words Tuesday night were an echo of what he said about the 2014-15 Bruins team which failed to make the playoffs. Because it's still November, the Bruins have plenty of chances to improve their game, but their postseason hopes could already be in danger. Boston sits in sixth place in the division, and given that only a very low percentage of teams who are not in playoff position by Thanksgiving end up making the playoffs, the Bruins need to turn things around sooner rather than later.
(h/t NESN)
