Brad Marchand On Jeremy Lauzon's Overtime Error: '[Bleep] Happens'
By Michael Hurley, CBS Boston
BOSTON (CBS) -- The Bruins rallied from a 3-1 deficit to electrify the home crowd and put a 2-0 series lead within their grasp on Monday night in Game 2 against the Islanders. All of that positivity, though, came crashing down in overtime, when Jeremy Lauzon fired a pass off Charlie Coyle's skate, setting up a breakaway for Islanders forward Casey Cizikas.
Cizikas buried the game-winning goal, evening up the series at one game apiece as it heads to Long Island.
It was, quite obviously, a deflating moment for the Bruins, and a tough learning moment for the 24-year-old defenseman.
Despite the miscue, alternate captain Brad Marchand -- who scored the game-tying goal in the third period -- wasn't down on his teammate after the 4-3 loss.
"Yeah, I mean, [stuff] happens," Marchand said. "He's a great player for us, he competes very hard, and he's out there every night working his butt off and competing for the group. We all make mistakes, we've all been there. It's tough when it happens to you but we're gonna bounce back."
Marchand added: "It's not the end of the world. It's 1-1."
Head coach Bruce Cassidy spoke in a straightforward way about the costly mistake, without getting overly critical of Lauzon.
"We made a play that obviously was ill-advised, and they scored on a breakaway, that's what I saw on the overtime goal," Cassidy said.
Later in his postgame press conference, Cassidy expounded upon the play that led to the game-winning goal for the Islanders.
"Well we'll go D-to-D high, we did it a lot, we got a lot of good offense from it tonight. But his partner wasn't there," Cassidy said. "So he just has to look. I mean, you have to survey the ice. Any time you have the puck, it's a fluid hockey game, and there are set plays for us that we run, but there has to be a player there. So you have to look. And usually you look first. And that's some of the learning curve for some of the younger guys. Take a look before the puck gets to you, recognize what's going on, because his partner wasn't there. He was recovering back out. So Charlie was trying to stay high in his spot, so obviously the cross-ice pass wouldn't have been there in that particular case. If it gets by Charlie and doesn't hit Charlie's skate, it's a foot race for their winger and our D, then maybe chip it back down. But that's one that had to go back down the wall or towards the net."
Cassidy added: "At the end of the day, you learn from it."
Marchand, who was playing in the 128th playoff game of his career, said that he and every one of his teammates have made similar mistakes in the past.
"Yeah I mean, nobody's perfect in this game. We all make mistakes every single night. We probably make a mistake every shift. That's how it goes. Sometimes they end up in the net, sometimes they don't," Marchand said. "If you want guys to understand when you make mistakes, then you gotta do the same. We're just there to back each other up and that's kind of what we've always done in this room, is we stand up for one another and we stick up for each other, and it's no different when something like that [happens]. I mean, it's a fluke play. He tries to make a play, it goes off a skate, and that stuff happens in hockey. So we're not concerned about it. Again, you just have to worry about the next game. It's all about how we bounce back as a group."
