Ames: B's top line suffers unusual off night in loss to Oilers

The Bruins' first line of Brad Marchand, Patrice Bergeron and Jake DeBrusk didn't have the best of nights against the Oilers in the 3-2 loss at the Garden on Thursday.

Marchand scored the game's first goal in the opening period, however the good fortune didn't continue the rest of the night as the trio finished a combined -6.

"They're a good team, they got two of the best players in the world," Marchand said. "They're not going to roll over, they did a good job pushing back. What they got we kind of gave them. I don't think they dominated or anything like that. We had it, it was in our hands, but we dropped it."

Most noticeable among the top line's mistakes, Bergeron had a bad turnover in the neutral zone that directly led to the Oilers tying goal in the third period. The five-time Selke Trophy winner doesn't often make bad plays, and he never makes egregious ones like on Thursday.

Bergeron thought he had Charlie McAvoy as an outlet for the regroup, but didn't notice McAvoy had skated right behind him, causing the puck to go back into their own end and eventually, into their own net.

Edmonton's first goal saw the B's get an unlucky break as Matt Grzelcyk lost an edge at the point, giving the Oilers a 4-on-1 rush on Jeremy Swayman.

Before Grzelcyk even gets the puck, Marchand makes a nifty, albeit unnecessary deke around an Oilers defender, before he finds Grzelcyk. Hindsight is always 20/20, but the better play in that instance was probably to pass to Bergeron who was skating down the wall, before Marchand made the deke.

Lastly, DeBrusk didn't have any plays that directly led to Oilers goals, however the Edmonton native took a gnarly cross-check from Mattias Ekholm during the Bruins' first power play.

DeBrusk returned shortly after and played the rest of the game, but it was a scary moment for B's fans seeing DeBrusk appear to suffer another injury.

"He's fine," head coach Jim Montgomery said. "I think most of it was he got the wind got knocked out of him, because when you're not expecting the hit and there's an accidental collison like that, you don't brace yourself for the hit. We were lucky that's all it was"

Had this been a couple seasons ago, the Bruins getting a bad game from their top three would have been much more cause for concern, but like all setbacks they've encountered this season, the team views it as a chance to grow.

"I thought the first 40 wasn't perfect but we had control and we were up by one," Bergeron said. "We've had success all year and we're not happy with that third period but we got to learn from that. We didn't deny their speed and they took it to us."