Bruce Cassidy Calls Out Team After Another Loss.

"I think we're going to struggle when our top line is off," Cassidy said. "You know, they weren't in sync, the power play wasn't in sync. So, then you're really relying on team defense. We've been through this where the secondary scoring still hasn't been there consistently enough to make up for those nights. The other night it did.

"At the end of the day, I think it goes to a number of things. But however you rate those things or stack them up, it's unacceptable. Your effort has to be there every night, effort and execution. We didn't execute well. That's gonna happen but the effort, it was not there with our group. And that's atypical of this group."

"We need other people to pick us up and they got to get going," Cassidy basically pleaded. "And I think we can look down the lineup and see some guys that could help us when that top three has an off night. We just need other people to get going and and recognize that. And that's what good teams do. And we did not do that [Saturday]."

"I'm disappointed in how the guys played in front of [Halak]," Cassidy admitted. "We don't have the depth [on defense] right now to not have what we call it ‘A' and ‘B' games. You can have a ‘B' game. You're not always going to have your ‘A' game, but you better bring your your damn ‘B' game and at least do something to help the team win, whether that's block a shot, kill a penalty check well, et cetera. And we just didn't have that. We were well down the alphabet after A and B."

"That's probably the most disappointing thing today: Our complete lack of effort and pushback. You're not going to win every game. No team does. You're not going to look great every night. But, you know, the effort has to be there and the response [has to be there] and we didn't have it."