The Bruins could have authored up a happy ending to their grueling five game road trip through Canada with a strong, victorious effort in Edmonton, and they almost did just that while still clinging to a lead with less than three minutes to play in the game.
But a couple of lapses in the road game pushed them into a 2-2 tie at the end of regulation with the Oilers, and ultimately gave way to a 3-2 loss at the hands of a dangerous Edmonton team at Rogers Arena on Thursday night.
For the Oilers, it was their superstars doing the damage with Leon Draisaitl assisting on all three of Edmonton’s goals, Connor McDavid potting the game-tying goal with 2:21 left in the third on a superstar rush and Zach Hyman finishing with a multi-point effort while sporting a pair of black eyes and a freshly busted nose.
Zach Hyman: hockey guy 💪 pic.twitter.com/j731tc2NPt
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) December 19, 2024
For the Bruins, it was honestly and candidly a pair of fairly soft goals allowed by goaltender Jeremy Swayman on a night where the B’s needed him to be an $8 million man if they were going to escape with two points. Instead, he allowed three goals on 26 shots – with two of the goals sneaking through his leg pads – and continues through a season where he has not lived up anywhere close to a paycheck that he forced his hockey club into by holding out through all of training camp.
After the game, Joe Sacco said a lot of complimentary things about the B’s defensive effort as he should have while they worked diligently to contain Edmonton’s explosive players even as they dented them for a pair of regulation scores. It wasn’t perfect by any means, but they did enough to win a game against an Oilers team that can explode for offense at any turn.
“For the most part we were good. Certainly, the first part of the game was exactly how we would have scripted it, I guess. We didn’t give them much in the first. We were over the top [of them] and we played the right way,” said Sacco. “We built a 2-0 lead, but that’s a good offensive team. They’re going to get their chances and they’re going to get their looks.
“We did our best to try to keep them to the outside as much as possible. They started the push there and we were defending a 2-0 lead for a long time. We just didn’t extend it. I don’t think fatigue played a part in it. Our guys played hard, but we just couldn’t finish it.”
Swayman has been better as of late, of course, and did make a number of quality saves against the Oilers in the game. But the first goal allowed to Hyman on a shot from the circle after Mark Kastelic threw the puck up the boards seemed to take Swayman mostly by surprise and gave the Oilers the kind of life the Bruins couldn’t afford to give them while cruising with a 2-0 lead through the first half of the game.
A broken nose can't stop Zach Hyman 🚨 pic.twitter.com/5F8rTlM13E
— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) December 20, 2024
“I think I was too committed to the passing option, so I opened myself up. He’s a heck of a player and he made a play,” admitted Swayman, while making sure to compliment the work done by the players in front of him. “He saw an opening and it was unfortunate. I do feel good and that my confidence is building. And it also stems from the guys in front of me. We wanted to end this road trip the right way and we played the right way, but we just didn’t get the end result.
“I’m really, really happy with this team and the effort that we’re giving. The first two games [of the trip] don’t matter anymore. We take it one game at a time and I’m really proud of the way the group responded.”
Admirably, Swayman’s teammates said the right things about the goaltender’s performance after the game was over and took the onus on them for the lost point. And the truth is the biggest fault they probably had was not being able to extend things to a 3-0 lead where even a soft serve special from their goalie probably wouldn’t have enough to doom them to some kind of overtime defeat.
“[Swayman] played really well,” said Brad Marchand. “He made a couple of big saves at big moments in the game. Unfortunately, we couldn’t do a better job in front of him.”
But the bottom line is that Swayman needs to start playing better and more like the guy last season who was named an All-Star for the first time, and then essentially forced the Bruins into a tough decision to trade Linus Ullmark to the Ottawa Senators to clear the nets for the 24-year-old Swayman. That Swayman-over-Ullmark decision is not looking so hot now in hindsight with Ullmark red-hot (12-7-2, 2.37 goals against average and .916 save percentage) while leading an upstart Ottawa group into contending for a playoff spot, and Swayman now sitting with a bloated 3.13 goals against average and an .887 save percentage that are below NHL average, below his standard and frankly well below what Joonas Korpisalo has even given Boston as his backup.
Worst goalies this year https://t.co/RtBkDPbkvW pic.twitter.com/kKAhgLK5zk
— MoneyPuck.com (@MoneyPuckdotcom) December 20, 2024
Still, credit also needs to be due to the Oilers for their superstars stepping up and ultimately earning them the two points in a hard-fought game.
“[Draisaitl and McDavid] are both world-class players, but I don’t think we can give them too much respect out there,” said Kastelic, who scored a really nice goal on a power drive to the net where he finished things off with a shoveled backhander. “That’s one of the things moving forward is not giving them too much respect and continuing to be hard on them. Don’t let them take advantage of us.
“With the way it started, yes [a .500 road trip] is encouraging. But I think we wanted more. We have two more games before the break that we want to take advantage of before Christmas.”
There are many factors that go into a team winning or losing an NHL hockey game, but your goalie surrendering a questionable goal while the opposition’s stars step up is not usually a recipe for a successful result.