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 caught napping and allowed the ageless James van Riemsdyk to sneak behind them for a breakaway score. Peeke was actually on the ice for all five goals scored by the Red Wings and endured through his worst performance of the season at a time when the back end was stretched super thin.
JVR's 3rd in his last 4 games. #LGRW pic.twitter.com/6QOU74ROzb
— Detroit Red Wings (@DetroitRedWings) December 3, 2025
“The whole team should be disappointed about the way we played in front of [Jeremy Swayman] today,” said Lindholm. “He’s been holding us in games and winning games for us and we hung him out to dry. We need to nip that in the bud moving forward.
“We need to be much better. We didn’t get up to our standard. We’ve shown moments of the game where we are really hard to play against, but we can’t just turn it on every now and then. The biggest thing if you want to win games is keeping the puck out of your own net, and we didn’t do a good enough job of that.”
The silver lining in Tuesday night’s loss was the continued strong performances of young, hungry Bruins players who are pushing others out of NHL jobs this season. Jonathan Aspirot scored his first career NHL goal on a blast from the point and Alex Steeves scored a pair of goals to give him five scores in 12 games since being called up to Boston.
Aspirot finished with 21:14 of ice time and a plus-2 in the loss and is one of the players helping things together on Boston’s back end as they lose other players to injury with Charlie McAvoy, Jordan Harris, Henri Jokiharju and now Callahan all banged up and out of commission right now.
“You got to keep your shifts even shorter when you are only out there with four [defensemen]. Keep it shorter and keep it rolling as much as you can,” said Aspirot. “It’s really fun to have [my first goal] and the guys did an unbelievable job to help me get it.
“The pass was coming right between my legs at the perfect speed, so I was just trying to get it on net. It’s a great feeling. Super happy that [the puck] went in and it was a great team effort.”
It was Aspirot’s first point in 15 games, but he’s also been a plus-4 while averaging 16 plus minutes of ice time per game, and has even graduated to playing top-4 minutes at this point with an injury-ravaged lineup. And he’s doing exactly what Sturm is asking him to do as a classic stay-at-home defenseman at the NHL level.
“I’m happy for him,” said Sturm. This guy has played really hard and doing everything he can to stay in this league and stay in this lineup. I want the [defensemen group] to defend right now. This is not the season for it right now and this is not the time for it. When everybody is healthy and we get everybody back, it’s a different story.
“We need them every second on the ice. They shouldn’t worry about playing offense. I want them to defend and I want them to get the puck to the forwards and let them do the work. When everybody is healthy maybe it’s a different story, but not right now.”
That sounds like a hockey coach who knows he’s under siege due to injuries on his blue line right now and that means the Bruins are going to be grinding it out for the foreseeable future with grudge match games like the last couple against the Red Wings.