By: Tom Calautti | @TCalauttis
The Boston Bruins took the ice for their last game before the Christmas break last night, hoping to snap what has been an ugly three-game losing streak. The Montreal Canadiens were in town, and they weren’t ready or willing to let the Bruins escape with a victory. Here’s how it went down:
Electric Start
The Boston Bruins have been criticized for their sluggish starts lately, but that wasn’t the case tonight. Just three seconds into the game, heavyweights Tanner Jeannot and Josh Anderson dropped the gloves for a spirited bout, one that set the tone for what ended up being Boston’s best period of the night.
Fans were treated to a second round of fisticuffs when Nikita Zadorov and Arber Xhekaj decided to put on a show at center ice nearly midway through the first. It looked like Boston’s bruisers took both fights, and momentum was heavily in their favor.
That changed briefly when Mason Lohrei made a brutal turnover in his own zone, which led to extended offensive pressure for Montreal. The Bruins couldn’t relieve the stress, and the sequence ended up with Sammy Blais throwing a puck on goal from below the goal line, which snuck past Jeremy Swayman.
Lohrei would redeem himself less than two minutes later when he grabbed a puck at the left point and skated it down the boards to find open ice. He then threaded a pass through the middle to Marat Khusnutdinov, who smacked one past Canadiens goalie Jacob Fowler.
Boston would extend their lead to 2-1 with under a minute remaining in the first period. The second power-play unit was on, and Alex Steeves took matters into his own hands, roofing a puck over Fowler’s shoulder to give the Bruins the lead heading into the first intermission.
Controversy in the Second
After a dominant first period where the Bruins out-attempted, outshot, and out-chanced the Habs, the second period was mostly about survival. Boston was under siege for most of the period, which led to their surrendering their lead.
An ugly miscommunication between Zadorov and David Pastrnak in the neutral zone led to a free puck being available for Montreal rookie phenom Ivan Demidov. The former lottery pick made no mistake when he saw his opportunity, bursting in on a breakaway and beating Jeremy Swayman to tie the game at two.
After that, it started to go off the rails for Boston.
Things were looking up late in the second when the Bruins were able to kill off a Steeves double-minor at 14:37 and keep the game knotted at two. Then, with just seconds remaining in the middle frame, it looked as if Boston regained the lead as Morgan Geekie found Elias Lindholm in front, who buried the team’s third goal of the night. Unfortunately for them, it wouldn’t stand.
The official closest to the play emphatically waved off the goal, and the Bruins would end the second period locked in a 2-2 draw. Head coach Marco Sturm decided not to use his challenge on the potential Lindholm goal, a decision that would later come back to haunt him.
“It’s always a group decision,” said Sturm of the choice to hold onto his challenge. “We thought (David Pastrnak) had his stick in the goalie’s pad and (the goaltender) couldn’t move. And it was a non-goal call from the ref too, so you always have to think about that one too. (Officials) don’t like to overrule things too, so that was pretty much it.”
David Pastrnak didn’t believe there was any interference on the play, but made sure to acknowledge that he hadn’t seen a replay when answering questions.
“I didn’t see, honestly,” said Pastrnak when asked about whether or not his stick was between Fowler’s pads. “I felt I didn’t touch him but I haven’t seen (the replay) yet so I can’t comment on that.”
Either way, the disallowed goal was a significant momentum swing, and it led to one of the most disappointing third periods of the season.
Disaster Strikes
I say without hyperbole that the Boston Bruins couldn’t have gone into the holiday break any worse than they did in last night’s contest. The Black and Gold surrendered four third-period goals in a span of just about five minutes, one of their most brutal displays of the season.
The Canadiens regained the lead after Nikita Zadorov’s stick snapped (reminiscent of last year’s game-ending disaster in Carolina) and Zach Bolduc was able to bury a rebound chance moments later. After that, things quickly got out of hand.
Sturm & Co. decided to challenge the Bolduc goal, a decision that would put Boston back on the penalty kill. Tanner Jeannot then took a cross-checking minor, which gave Montreal a five-on-three. Cole Caufield would score less than 20 seconds later to increase his team’s lead to two goals.
The goal came so quickly after Jeannot’s penalty that he still had to serve the remainder of his time. Merely seconds after the opening faceoff, Hampus Lindholm got whistled for a trip, and Montreal would head back to another five-on-three. Captain Nick Suzuki would tally a goal on the ensuing power-play, and the lead was up to 5-2.
“Just (need to) be smarter,” said Viktor Arvidsson of the team’s parade to the penalty box. “When you’re going into a battle, you gotta know where your stick is, gotta know where your body is…I think we’re taking too many, I’d say stupid ones.”
He wasn’t the only one who shared that sentiment. Both Pastrnak and Sturm highlighted ‘mental fatigue’ and ‘mental mistakes’ as the biggest issues on this most recent homestand. Their words rang true, but it seemed like Alex Steeves was the one who summed things up best.
“I think we’re the most penalized team in the league, so we gotta clean that up.”
The Bruins would surrender a fourth third-period goal and eventually go on to lose 6-2. They are now tied for sixth in the Atlantic Division with 41 points and a point outside the wild card with games in hand on other teams. They’ll get three days off for the holiday before heading to Buffalo on Saturday to begin a five-game road trip.
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