If the Bruins end up missing the cut for the Stanley Cup playoffs, it will be games like Wednesday night’s loss to the New York Rangers that will keep them up at night.
The B’s played a respectable game and were right in it all the way up until the end but couldn’t find a way to push for that last goal to get things into overtime before falling short by a 3-2 score to a desperate New York Rangers team at Madison Square Garden. It’s a lost point that could end up really costing a Black and Gold group that sits fifth in the Atlantic Division and is still technically tied for the last wild card spot.
Still, they are far behind the other teams in terms of games in and ROW tiebreakers, and they couldn’t find way to lock down a game they were winning 2-1 after the first 40 minutes before penalties and shoddy special teams play came back to bite them.
"It's our own doing," admitted David Pastrnak. "We were undisciplined, got scored on against the power play. Those are things that bite you in this league. We didn't have an 'A' game today whatsoever, but we were up 2-1 after two periods somehow thanks to 'Korpi' and a couple goals. We just have to be better with the discipline and on the power play.
“I’m not circling one penalty. We take a lot of penalties. It happened against Minnesota as well. Sometimes it’s unlucky, but we have a really good penalty kill and sometimes we put too much stress on them.”
The discipline was captain Brad Marchand taking a third-period roughing penalty that opened the door for the Blueshirts and had the B’s captain chewing out the referees after New York had potted the game-tying goal seconds after he’d been released from the penalty box.
Marchand clarified afterward that he was upset the Rangers didn’t get a penalty for pulling off his helmet after he made contact with their goaltender, but didn’t take any issues with the initial roughing penalty called.
“Unfortunately, we made some mistakes in the third [period] to kind of throw that away,” said Marchand. “It’s deflating, obviously. It is what it is.”
It was the exact kind of mistakes that Pastrnak himself was making in the first half of the season, but now he’s riding a 12-game point streak where he’s got 11 goals and 25 points.
Pastrnak scored the first goal of the game for the B’s in the second period after collecting his own blocked shot and sniping one past Igor Shesterkin, and Elias Lindholm followed 16 seconds later with a shot that deflected off Adam Fox’s skate. The Bruins had to know that two goals probably wasn’t going to be enough to beat a Rangers team that is below them in the playoff standings, however, and that’s exactly how the game played out.
The Bruins felt like they were still okay in a tied game on the road in New York, but once again the power play was a problem with Chris Kreider picking up a shorthanded score for the game-winner on a 2-on-1 shorthanded rush with Mika Zibanejad.
"It's 2-2 at that point so we're still fine, and then we gave up one at the end of the power play there," Bruins coach Joe Sacco said. "So, disappointing, right? It's a disappointing third period when you battle back and get a 2-1 lead on the road. Frustrating."
That’s the Bruins season in a nutshell, particularly on the road.
Regulation road losses in Washington, New York and Toronto coming out of the holiday break were all blown chances for at least one point, and the Bruins blew a third period lead on the road in Ottawa a month ago in a game where they blew their good chances at the second point. Couple those with Wednesday night’s loss in New York where they just couldn’t somehow push for overtime, and that’s five points already this season that the B’s have fumbled away in competitive road efforts.
Add those five points to Boston’s ledger right now and they are comfortably in third place in the Atlantic Division and sitting just two points behind the Florida Panthers out of first place in the division. It’s all hypothetical, of course, but playoff teams find a way to turn pretty good road efforts into valuable points by grinding it out, and that is something the Bruins consistently have not been able to do this season.
And that’s not even talking about the handful of blowout losses on the road to the true iron of the league this season.
“Obviously, it’s frustrating. Especially headed into the third period with a lead,” said Pastrnak. “You are not going to have an ‘A’ game every time. It’s a long season. We just need to play better in the third period.
“There were a lot of mistakes and a lot of positives, but no matter what we headed into the third period and didn’t close it out. We didn’t even get a point and we really need the points, so it’s really frustrating right now.”
It’s the same old frustrating formula for this Bruins team. Some undisciplined penalties, shoddy special teams play and a not-quite-good-enough road effort that has them sitting with a 9-15-3 record away from TD Garden this season. If and when the Bruins aren’t quite good enough to make the playoff cut at the end of the regular season, these will be the areas that will be looked at as chronic problem areas for the Black and Gold in the moments of truth when contenders and pretenders are sorted out by their results over an 82-game season.