Hitting, and missing, in pinch
Bruins' defense still is adjusting
ST. PAUL - In the second period of Boston's game against Minnesota Saturday night, Zdeno Chara found himself in a patch of real estate rarely visited by defensemen under Claude Julien's watch last season.
Chara was below the dots in the offensive zone, supporting the rush and engaging in a puck battle to put pressure on goalie Niklas Backstrom.
Julien, the second-year Boston coach, has given the green light to the blue line after watching a spitball-shooting offense shoot too many blanks last season (24th in goals in the NHL). When the time is right, defensemen are encouraged to jump up in the play.
"That was the mandate I gave our team this year," Julien said. "We can create more offense with our D's supporting the attack. But we also have to realize that if our D's are in, you have to get back and cover up."
Two games into the more-pinching system (a 5-4 win over Colorado, a 4-3 loss to Minnesota), the Bruins look like a club that is still adjusting to playing with loosened reins.
While Chara battled for that puck vs. the Wild, Marco Sturm rotated back to the left point, taking the defenseman's usual spot. But Minnesota, which has a game plan centering on the counterattack, gained the puck and kicked off the rush the other way. First, captain Mikko Koivu sent a diagonal pass out of the zone to Andrew Brunette.
Chara turned and sprinted back, while Sturm backtracked to fend off the rush. Brunette stickhandled through the neutral zone and spotted linemate Antti Miettinen filling his lane on the other side. With Miettinen in full flight, Brunette hit him with a tape-to-tape pass that the winger tapped past Manny Fernandez for his team's third goal.
"There's always a risk when your D's are jumping up in the play," Julien said. "Sometimes it's part of the risk you have to take. You can't have everything perfect as far as having a D jump in and never having outnumbered situations. But our forwards have to read off that as well."
The Boston defense is literally a unit in transition. The Bruins have been more active in turning defense into offense, joining the rush and pinching along the walls. But the blue liners also are aiming to maintain the defense-first approach that became the team's identity last season.
The Bruins took advantage of inconsistent goaltending from Peter Budaj to claim a season-opening win against the Avalanche. But they weren't happy with the play in their zone. The fast and skilled Colorado forwards took advantage of some turnstile defense to blow into the offensive zone and pepper Tim Thomas. The Bruins made coverage mistakes, especially when the Avalanche took the puck behind the net.
"We had some breakdowns where we weren't finding our guys and taking them out so they don't get shots off," said Dennis Wideman of the play against Colorado. "As defensemen, we have to do a better job of not letting them have that much time to make passes out from behind the net. The other guys have to make sure they get sticks on those guys. We can't keep giving up that many opportunities.
"Colorado had so many passes from behind the net. They just got it out short side and the guy would have a bomb from 5 feet from the front of the net. We can't be giving that up. Last year we didn't."
The Bruins eliminated some of the sloppiness against the Wild. But Minnesota's countering style - speedy wingers such as Marian Gaborik and Pierre-Marc Bouchard take off when their defensemen gain control of the puck - threw a wrench in Boston's pinching game.
"We have to keep our heads on a swivel the whole time because there were guys flying behind us the whole game," Wideman said. "It makes it a little tougher to get up in the play, join the rush, and feel confident about it, knowing that guys like Gaborik are flying into the zone as soon as they touch the puck."
Boston's next match is Wednesday against hated rival Montreal. Saturday night, the run-and-gun Canadiens put a six-spot on the Maple Leafs, with addition Alex Tanguay recording a 4-point night while Saku Koivu, Sergei Kostitsyn, and Guillaume Latendresse added 3 points each.
Every time the Bruins played the Canadiens last season, they tried to pound them out of the building. Another showdown against Les Glorieux, who knocked Boston out of the playoffs in the first round last season, should have the blue line motivated to tighten up and throw its weight around.
"Overall, I thought we did a decent job," Julien said after Saturday night's loss. "You just have to look at the shots-against and scoring chances. A lot of their shots and chances came on the power play. There were a couple breakdowns, but we were much better defensively than we were the other night.
"Those four goals were certainly not indicative of the way we played defensively."
Fluto Shinzawa can be reached at fshinzawa@globe.com. 