Bruins leave Tampa with lessons learned - and a sobering reminder of task that lies ahead in postseason

It doesn’t matter if it’s a beer-league foe or arguably the best NHL team assembled in decades — relinquishing a go-ahead goal with 52.2 seconds left in regulation is going to put your hockey club in a sordid mood.

And yet, despite Monday’s 5-4 road loss against the Tampa Bay Lightning, Bruce Cassidy and his players had plenty of silver linings to draw from after trading punches with a Lightning club just four wins away from setting a new league record for victories in a single season.

While Boston’s trouncing of Tampa Bay last month was at the expense of a gassed Lightning team on the second leg of a back-to-back slate, this Bruins team, as constituted, could draw from a similar argument in its favor if it was manhandled during Monday’s matchup.

The Bruins were forced to go toe to toe against a Lightning team averaging 3.90 goals per game without three regulars on their blue line in Torey Krug, Matt Grzelcyk and Kevan Miller, while an injury in the first period forced fellow blueliner John Moore to sit out the rest of the contest.

Up front, Boston was also shorthanded, with top-six winger Marcus Johansson still not quite ready to return from a lung contusion, while Sean Kuraly will remain on the shelf for at least four weeks after suffering a fractured hand on Thursday against the Devils.

But even with numerous vacancies sprinkled across the roster, the Bruins more than made a game out of it on Monday — taking a two-goal lead into the final stanza.

While secondary scoring has been an Achilles’ heel with this Bruins club for the majority of the 2018-19 campaign, most of Boston’s cast has answered the call as of late. With Charlie Coyle and Brandon Carlo both lighting the lamp in the second period, Boston has now received goals from 11 different players over the last seven periods of hockey — a far cry from the usual box scores from October and November.

Even with a decimated D corps, youngsters like Brandon Carlo (one goal, 27:00 TOI Monday) have continued to impress and are poised to give Boston a major lift come the postseason, while Connor Clifton (20:33 TOI, four hits) continues to dispel any talk of a return to the AHL any time soon.

One most nights, these contributions would be enough to, at the very least, scrap together a point against cellar dwellers and playoff opponents alike.

But against a juggernaut like Tampa — the elephant in the room that the Bruins will need to go through if they want to hoist Lord Stanley’s Cup — even a few defensive lapses can bury you in a hurry.



“They’re a good team,” Coyle said. “When you have a lead like that, we’ve got to push even more and do it the right way. I think we kind of let our foot off the gas a little bit and you can’t do it against a team like that.

“Mindless errors, having too many people up in the play — for the right reasons, trying to score — but we’ve got to know the situation and have guys back. That team will make you pay, and they did.”

Boston might have entered the second intermission with a 4-2 lead, but a Tampa defense anchored by Victor Hedman and Ryan McDonagh — along with an aggressive forecheck — didn’t make things easy on the visitors.

Through the first two periods, Boston only managed to generate 21 shot attempts (and 10 shots on goal) during 5v5 on play — with the Bruins mired in a 15-minute stretch without a shot on goal after Brad Marchand cashed in on the power play at 8:30 in the first. Looking to land a haymaker in the third to put Tampa Bay out of commission proved to be a misguided endeavor for Boston during a third period in which the Lightning scored three times and held a commanding 65.22 Corsi For Percentage during 5v5 on play.

Normally a stay-at-home stalwart, Brandon Carlo smelled blood in the water during the early minutes of the third. Having already tallied his first goal in 44 games earlier in the contest, Carlo nearly had another when he joined the rush again and fired one wide from the slot. However, the Lightning countered in short order — with Victor Hedman tapping a rebound past Tuukka Rask with only Charlie McAvoy left back on defense.   



“The third goal against was a tough one,” Carlo said. “After I scored, I might have got a little ahead of myself and started joining the rush a little bit too much there. Things happen after that and kind of bouncing around pucks, giving up odd-man rushes. Not the kind of game that I want to exemplify out of myself. Kind of sucked there in the third to have that happen.”

It was far from the only defensive miscue from the Bruins on Monday, as both of the Lightning’s tallies in the first period came off virtually the same play — with an uncovered Steven Stamkos uncorking one-timers from his office without bodies in front of him. (Not a sound strategy against Stamkos.)



(Not a sound strategy against Stamkos - Part 2.)



Had it not been for a standout showing from Boston’s penalty kill, things could have been much worse on Monday — with the Bruins giving the top power play in the NHL (85.5 percent success rate) a whopping 10:08 of 5v4 play.

There’s an awful lot to like about this Bruins team — which despite Monday’s loss, has still won 17 out of its last 22 games and is close to locking up home ice for what should be an entertaining first-round matchup against the Maple Leafs. Even without most of its D corps in place, Boston is making things difficult for the opposition on most nights, while more and more players are contributing on the stat sheet — to go along with the usual dominant production from Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand and Co. When this team is on its game, it can hold its own against just about every team in the NHL — as evidenced during the second period of Monday's loss. But to win against this wagon of Tampa Bay team? This Boston club can’t rely on dominant shifts from its first line or a strong period or two.

To beat an extraordinary opponent like Tampa, the Bruins are going to need 60 extraordinary minutes of hockey (and maybe more) on a nightly basis if it wants to get out of the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. 

“It was a 4-2 game for us,” Bergeron said. “I thought we did a good job. … There’s a few I’m sure we’d like to get back and get a second chance at it. I think, really, the bottom line, I thought was our play away from the puck in our zone and it cost us.”