There’s an up-and-down roller coaster element to the second half of the NHL regular season for each and every franchise, and that can go doubly so for teams enjoying the advantage of sitting way high up in the standings.
Certainly that’s been the case with the Bruins after dropping their third straight road game, a 4-3 shootout loss to the Seattle Kraken, on Monday night and losing for the seventh time in nine tries while enduring through a lot of blown third period leads, a slew of overtime and shootout decisions and a fair share of adversity that the B’s were asking for after last year’s wrinkle-free regular season.
Boston’s 3-3-5 record since the NHL All Star break accurately portrays a hockey team still showing some of their season-long weaknesses, including a lack of ability to close out leads and consistently play confident hockey in the third period.
“Not having that killer instinct, this is a trip where we could have had 7-of-8 [points] given the way that we played,” said Jim Montgomery of what he’ll take from the trip in its entirety. “We need to make sure we play with a little more killer instinct aggressively to start the period and then understanding game management with our outs and breakouts so we can play more in the offensive zone.
“Sometimes when you’re in that situation and things aren’t going well, you wait for things to happen instead of making things happen. We’re waiting for things to happen. We don’t have the right attitude when we’re starting third [periods] with the lead.”
Truth be told, the Bruins should feel like they are in a bit of trouble at this point with the mounting evidence on a multitude of fronts.
“We could have done better. We could have done worse. There are definitely some areas we continue to need to improve upon,” said Brad Marchand. “We can’t let games slip away from us. It happened a couple of times on this trip.”
The B’s still hold the top spot in the Eastern Conference with a slim one-point lead over the New York Rangers, and a two-point advantage over the Florida Panthers in the Atlantic Division. But none of that really matters as flashing “warning” signs crop up with each passing game where the Bruins players look fragile and unsure of themselves in crunch time third period situations.
Once again, they were outshot and outchanced in a third period as Seattle outshot Boston by a 14-9 margin, and the Bruins frittered away a one-goal lead while making some crucial execution mistakes.
“We played a great game, but then in the third period we kind of let them push,” said Pastrnak. “You must expect good teams will make a push and refocus. It took us until almost too late in the third period to make the push back.”
A second period too many men on the ice penalty while the Bruins were already on the penalty kill was a microcosm of the lack of attention to detail that has been plaguing the team as of late. It looked like chaos on the bench with players coming on and off the ice and it shouldn’t be that way at this time of year, particularly with a team that’s had more than a handful of too many men on the ice calls already this season.
The Bruins are entering Dave Lewis territory and that’s definitely not a good thing.
Then there was an erratic play from Linus Ullmark in the second period where he tried to brashly throw a puck up the middle of the ice, and instead watched as Jordan Eberle knocked it down and tapped it in with the goalie out of position. It was eerily reminiscent of some of the uneven Ullmark play from last season’s Stanley Cup playoff series against the Florida Panthers when he took himself out of plays that quickly devolved into easy scores for the opponent.
Kraken tie the game in hilarious fashion.
— Emerald City Hockey (@EmeraldCityHky) February 27, 2024
Linus Ullmark clears it right into Jordan Eberle, who tucks it home. pic.twitter.com/rJ7ZwuQI4C
There were warning signs even before the game with Derek Forbort benched for Monday night’s loss when he showed up late for a team meeting in Seattle earlier in the day.
Still, Monday night’s loss still earned the Bruins a point when they got a late PP goal from Charlie Coyle to push things into overtime, and it could have perhaps even been a win for Boston if a controversial Morgan Geekie goal hadn’t been overturned for goaltender interference.
If those kinds of bang-bang, competitive plays turn into “no goal” challenges across the league, the NHL is about to become a softer, less entertaining brand of hockey.
“The puck was around him, I thought. I don’t know if he was going to get it regardless of what happened,” said Geekie. “If they think there was contact there that hampered him from making the save, then that’s what they see. I’m not the one making those calls. It is what it is.”
This goal from Morgan Geekie was called back for goalie interference: pic.twitter.com/oa9O1lHW7o
— Evan Marinofsky (@EvanMarinofsky) February 27, 2024
But the bottom line is Monday’s game wasn’t the kind of soul-searching collapse that the B’s suffered a couple of nights earlier in Vancouver. There were some positives to take from it whether it was David Pastrnak’s two-goal performance that had Bruins fans in Seattle mistakenly tossing hats on the ice, or Coyle matching his NHL career high in goals scored (21) as he puts together a career year.
But the too many men on the ice penalties, the fragile confidence level in third periods and the inability to master small details like winning faceoff battles in key moments could fester into massive, terminal problems come Stanley Cup playoff time.
The question now is whether these concern areas can be properly addressed with NHL trade deadline improvements, and with limited practice time amidst a busy schedule that sees them play 22 games over 46 days to close out the regular season.
“Even though we’re in the final home stretch, we have to continue to teach, because we didn’t have a lot of practice time,” admitted Montgomery. “We didn’t practice once on this trip. The guys have got to focus and apply the good habits and details that will give us opportunities and results.”
If not, then this Western Canadian road trip full of frustration will be a harbinger of what awaits the Black and Gold a couple of months from now in a postseason they hope is much different from last spring’s frustrating Bruins demise.