Clearly, You Always Want an Opportunity to Get Back at It

BOSTON BRUINS QUOTES Pregame Saturday, August 25, 2020 BOSTON BRUINS HEAD COACH BRUCE CASSIDY On Anton Khudobin… Clearly, you always want an opportunity to get back at it. I think for Doby [Anton Khudobin], he’s carved out a nice career for himself in the National Hockey League. He did a good job for us and it obviously give him confidence. He won a lot of games, played well, worked on his game with Goalie Bob. Certainly, Bob deserves some credit for that part. But Doby is the one that has to get in there and manage it. We’re happy for him. He was always a popular guy, a great personality. And then I look at it a bit like Jaro. Certainly, a guy that played a lot of hockey this year for Dallas, behind Bishop, just like Jaro did behind Tuukka. So, you got a two-headed monster in net. I think both teams are very comfortable in front of their backups. And that matters too. You can’t be nervous out there if you don’t trust your goaltender. Obviously, if you look at the goals against numbers, two of the top teams. Not surprised by it for Doby and not surprised by it for Jaro, two good goaltenders getting an opportunity and here we are. On if he considers it a rivalry with Tampa… I do, because to me, it’s the cream of the crop going at each other. I do consider it a rivalry. You’re always going to have the Original Six, that’s not going away anytime soon. But the modern day – I looked at like with Boston and Pittsburgh earlier in the decade. They had some good matchups, good playoff matchups. Two good teams that were winning, top end players. Now we’ve kind of evolved over against Tampa Bay simply because they’re in our division and now we’re getting them in the playoffs a little more and both teams have had a certain level of success. I like the rivalry simply because it brings out the best in everybody. I have respect for their organization. I think both teams play hard and try to do it the right way. Yes, to answer your question, and I think it can only grow from here as well. On any concern Ondrej Kase finishing… No, not yet. I think that concern comes in when the team is not winning. Everybody puts a little more pressure on themselves. As long as we’re winning and you’re getting your chances, typically you’re comfortable with your game and the fact that you haven’t quite finished, you’ll keep pushing through. Let’s hope that we keep, (A) winning and (B) he gets rewarded for his efforts. That’s how I look at it. It certainly hasn’t affected his demeanor. He’s always in a good mood around the rink. He’s on the ice yesterday, he’s on the ice today for an optional this morning. He continues to work at his game. I don’t think it’s affected his play away from the puck. We’re still getting to know all his details of his game. We haven’t seen him a lot. Work ethic, second effort on the puck continues to be there every day. That’s what we need out of him. Like I said, hopefully he catches a break here and gets one to go for him because he might be that streaky guy a like Jake [DeBrusk] when he gets hot. On Brandon Carlo minutes being down… Yeah, I don’t think it’s any reflection on his game. Some of it is we’ve put a little more onus on Charlie [McAvoy]. I think with O-zone draws we use Charlie as much as anybody. I think we have the option, because it’s the left side with Torey [Krug], we look at our guys that are on the power play. We’ve got one righty that plays the power play, two lefties. I think [assistant coach] Kevin [Dean] tilted toward Charlie more often. You might see a little bit of that regress in Charlie’s case and jump up a little bit for Brando when you play back-to-backs and the way the schedule looks going forward. Obviously in the playoffs, it’s one game at a time and you’re trying to stay in the moment. But we’ve got to be respectful of that issue that could come up down the road. We want to make sure we balance it as much as possible and some of it also would be that we’re not in the box as much. That’s where Brandon gets a lot more minutes – when we’re on the kill. If we stay out of the box his numbers might be down a little bit because of that as well. On the power play discussion of keeping Krejci on the top unit… Very little discussion about it. I’m the one who makes that final call. I have a lot to do with the power play, kind of script how we’re going to go about it. Obviously, worked with Pando [assistant coach Jay Pandolfo] on that. The discussion was with David and Brad as much as anything. They‘re the guys that – Krech gets on his strong side and Brad moves from the half wall to the front of the net. As long as they’re comfortable with what we’re trying to accomplish here – they’ve seen results. When you don’t see results, that’s when players sort of question what your plan is. I think they’ve moved it around well. I think Brad has a lot of respect for Krech and what he can do on the power play. So certainly, amenable to that and like I said before, a little more of a greasy role for him. A little more probably bumps and bruises when you play the net front. But that’s what we need right now. It’s what is making us go. if it doesn’t, we’ll look to adapt and change things up. Right now, it’s worked out for and we’re going to keep on keeping on until there is lack of success and we’ll have to revisit. On McDonagh being out and the next man up mentality… I don’t think you win without it. There’s very few teams that I imagine can skate right through without some level of injury. Depends how serious it is. That’s the next thing, does it affect psyche of the team if its long term. Like a Stamkos, like a Tuukka leaving for us. And then who is next up? We were comfortable with Halak, just like earlier questions, Dallas seems very comfortable with Khudobin. So, who is going in? Does the team trust that player? Did he have the ability? How does the coach use him? Do they have the ability to just do what McDonagh did or – when we lost Pastrnak, we moved Bjork up with the understanding that he’s not going to replace David Pastrnak. Even though he’s replacing him his spot in the lineup, he just needs to play his game. And then the guys around him. Marchy and Bergy knew that they probably had to give a little more if we were going to advance with Pasta out and it trickled down. Krech recognized that as well, specifically on the power play. I think there’s a lot of factors that go into it. How does your team handle it? How mentally tough are there with the next guy? To me it’s that simple. Next man up, yes. It helps to have depth, that’s on the organizational – the scouting and the GM, that’s when they really earn their keep when they’re able to identify those guys that can come into the lineup on short notice and still be effective players. Because it’s not that easy to not play for a while and have to get up to speed in the National Hockey League playoffs. That’s the other thing people forget. If you haven’t played for a while, all of a sudden you get tossed in there to the high intensity, not that easy for a player. So the guys that have the mindset that can do that, that’s a good benefit. On the fourth line being physical without chasing the hits… I thought they were fine. Good solid contact. They reload for one another. When one guy is finishing a check, a couple other guys are probably taking a read on – well is he on the right side of the puck after the check? Did the puck advance up the ice or did they go back with it? There’s different ways - you can string three or four hits together if your forecheck is on time. If the puck moves up the ice, then it’s one and done and the other guys have to make sure they’re in good defensive posture and probably check with their legs or their stick or both. Those guys, they read well off each other. I think they certainly had guys out there banging, kind of matching each other hit for it. It’s not atypical for a playoff game, especially game one. You’re trying to kind of mark your territory, so to speak, with the physicality part.

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