At a certain point, the injuries can become too much for any hockey team.
That certainly felt like the case on Friday afternoon as the Black Friday matinee tilt against the New York Rangers, a ticket that’s usually one of the most popular on the Bruins' schedule, was mostly a dud in a 6-2 loss at TD Garden.
Certainly, these kinds of games can be anticipated in the first home game back after a lengthy road trip like the one that took the B’s through California and New York, and that goes doubly so when the head announces an hour prior to puck drop that both David Pastrnak and Pavel Zacha will be out of the lineup with day-to-day injuries.
“We knew it was going to be hard coming back from the road and knowing that a few guys were going to be missing,” said Marco Sturm. “This is not an excuse. I think to survive those kinds of games, or stretches, with injuries a lot of guys have to step up, and a lot of guys didn’t [step up]. I think that was the biggest difference.”
Predictably, the Bruins got off to a slow start and were ultimately outshot by a 36-21 margin while New York’s star players like Artemi Panarin, Mika Zibanejad and Adam Fox enjoyed strong performances with their Bruins counterparts mostly out of the lineup and injured. Honestly, the B’s lineup on Friday afternoon looked like the group they would put together this season if they decided that tanking to try to get a chance at somebody like Gavin McKenna was an option for them.
It isn’t, of course, and it’s more a byproduct of having played the most games in the Eastern Conference along with the New York Rangers. That didn’t stop the unsatisfied B’s fans from letting the players know they didn’t like what they were watching when the Black and Gold left the ice trailing by a 4-0 score at the end of the second period.
The B’s got goals from Mittelstadt and Morgan Geekie to make it a competitive game in the third period but didn’t have enough juice to make it all the way back while trying to compete with AHL recalls like Georgii Merkulov, Riley Tufte, Jonathan Aspirot and Alex Steeves constituting the Black and Gold lineup.
“We get booed off the ice in the second [period] and we totally deserved it,” admitted Geekie, who scored his 16th goal of the season in the loss. “I thought we came out well in the third and battled back to 4-2, but we couldn’t close the gap. It’s tough to win in this league when you play 10 or 20 minutes [in a game].
“The effort we came out with today was unacceptable and we’re aware of it and we deserve it.”
If the Bruins season does begin to go sideways, it would be due to a large onslaught of injuries where the organizational depth is tested and too many key guys are simply missing at the same time.
ONE TIMERS
• One silver lining for the Boston Bruins in their mostly downbeat home loss to the New York Rangers was the solid return for Casey Mittelstadt to the B’s lineup after missing the last nine games with a lower-body injury. Mittelstadt scored a goal in the loss and gave the Bruins another top-6 forward to replace the ones they were suddenly missing in Elias Lindholm and Pavel Zacha due to a recent spate of injuries.
“Obviously you want to win, but it definitely felt good to be back,” said Mittelstadt. “You miss it when you’re gone [and out of the lineup] and sometimes it’s hard to watch your teammates knowing that you can’t help. I probably skated four or five times pretty much the whole time they were on the road and ending up in a good spot [to play] today.”
It’s a bit unusual that Mittelstadt returned to play without even taking part in a Bruins team practice prior to coming off injured reserve but chalk it up as another part of the crazy compacted schedule that has the B’s racing back from the road, celebrating a quick Christmas and then getting back into back-to-back games at home this weekend. Also chalk it up to Mittelstadt truly wanting to play when it seemed like a few Bruins players were still working off the sleepiness following their turkey dinners.
“I thought he was great. But I could tell even before the game that he wanted to play and he didn’t care about anything else,” said Sturm. “I’m going to tell you this that a lot of guys would pull the chute, but he didn’t and so I give him a lot of credit.”
• This is no way a reflection on Georgii Merkulov, who appears by all accounts to be a diligent worker that’s done everything asked of him while developing into a dominant-type player at the AHL level. It’s more a statement to the many critics constantly needling Bruins management for “marooning” all their young, offensive skill players at the AHL level while they call veteran minor leaguers up to the NHL level to assist the big club once injuries hit the roster.
Merkulov was called up on Friday when Pastrnak and Zacha were not going to be able to play, and the Russian winger finished without a shot on net and a minus-1 in 10:35 of ice time while not making any kind of an impact in the game. At a certain point, the vocal fans constantly crying to give these players a chance have to recognize that there have been far too many of these invisible performances from guys like Merkulov and Fabian Lysell when they have been given opportunities to show what they can do at the NHL level.
“We know the firepower that we lost, but games like this are opportunities for a lot of guys to step up and seize opportunities. That’s how you kind of make it in this league,” said Morgan Geekie, speaking from a teamwide perspective. “Up and down the lineup we didn’t show up to start the game. We battled back a little bit, but obviously it wasn’t an acceptable effort [against the Rangers].”
• In our weekly James Hagens update, the Bruins first rounder picked up three goals in a Friday afternoon win over Notre Dame and is beginning to put together some really dominant numbers (nine goals and 16 points in 14 games) as a sophomore stirring the drink for the Eagles offense.
THE HATS ARE OFF AT CONTE FORUM 🧢
— NESN (@NESN) November 28, 2025
JAMES HAGENS IS INEVITABLE! 🦅 x 🐻 @NHLBruins / @BC_MHockey / @hockeyeast pic.twitter.com/49l7pOvCM5
The further good news is that Dean Letourneau continues to pour on the offense as well (six goals and 14 points in 14 games) while clearly showing the work he put in over the summer to truly be ready for his sophomore season in Hockey East. Some really good signs from a couple of the young Eagles players that also have bright futures in Black and Gold.
• Great to see Nikita Zadorov conducting the Thanksgiving morning food deliveries with his family on Thursday morning and continuing to embrace the on-ice and off-ice role as one of the leaders on the Black and Gold.
Nikita Zadorov and his family spent Thanksgiving morning giving out pies at St. Francis House and Pine Street Inn in Boston ❤️ pic.twitter.com/TJnPb0AnVl
— NESN (@NESN) November 27, 2025
Also great to see Charlie McAvoy hit social media with his wife and son to thank everybody that’s shown concern for him after he took a slapshot to the mouth last month that required facial surgery to repair.
So much to be thankful for in this holiday season as demonstrated by both McAvoy and Zadorov no matter what is going on for them this season, and the same can be said for everybody out there. Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and is now gearing up for Christmas and New Year’s right around the corner.