It remains to be seen where the breaking point is going to be for the injury situation, but things are getting dicey on the back end for the Boston Bruins.
The Black and Gold were down to just four defensemen for the second half of the third period in Tuesday night’s 5-4 loss to the Detroit Red Wings at Little Caesars Arena, a game where the Bruins were chasing after Detroit for the entirety of the game.
Michael Callahan was lost due to a lower-body injury midway through the game, where it looked like his skate caught in a rut on the ice, and Nikita Zadorov was missing from the final half of the third period after getting 14 minutes of the penalty time after getting into it with Red Wings defenseman Mo Seider in the third period.
Zadorov and Seider got into after this play 😳 pic.twitter.com/ELJkb2qK3u
— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) December 3, 2025
As always, the Bruins put up a good fight in Detroit while chasing the Wings, but ultimately, the blueline shortage impacted them as Andrew Peeke really struggled with a game-worst minus-4 mark and Jeremy Swayman was pulled minutes into the third period.
Needless to say, at no point did it feel like it was going to be Boston’s night after getting the better of the Red Wings in the first half of the home-and-home series. There were breakdowns in gap control against a Red Wings team that looks to fly the zone and play with speed, there were turnovers around their own blue line that are always costly and for the first time in a long time, Jeremy Swayman allowed a goal or two that were of the soft variety.
The B’s actually outshot the Red Wings by a 35-32 margin, but that didn’t tell the tale of a hockey game where Detroit enjoyed way more Grade A chances based on the softness of Boston’s team defense.
“We were not sharp. That was missing today,” admitted Marco Sturm after the loss, which pushed them out of the playoff structure and has the B’s in a win one/lose one stretch that’s been going on for a while. “It got better as the game went on, but you could tell it was a little quiet and a little slow at the beginning.
“We’ll have to see tomorrow [on Michael Callahan’s injury] but I don’t think he’s going to be ready for the next few days here. We end up with four ‘D’ in the third period and five ‘D’ pretty much the whole night. That was a tough one too. The guys tried everything, but we needed to be a little smarter and take care of our ‘D’ a little more. Overall, the little details just didn’t click today.”
Perhaps the first goal was a harbinger of how the night was going to go overall as Peeke, and Hampus Lindholm, were both