On its face, the Boston Bruins arrive back home to Boston feeling okay after getting a 1-1-0 split on their two-game road trip through Chicago and Dallas.
The Black and Gold still sit in a wild-card playoff spot and have won eight of their last 10 games, but there are also still lingering questions about this exact Bruins group after a humbling 6-2 road defeat at the hands of the Dallas Stars at American Airlines Arena on Tuesday night.
“It’s learning for us. It’s a hard league to win in and maybe we took a little for granted tonight. They’re a good team and against good teams you need to play the right way,” said Hampus Lindholm. “Discipline…we talked about not taking penalties and we take two to let them get a lead on us. We kind of shot ourselves in the foot a little bit…we didn’t want to play [a grinding] game tonight and that’s what happens.”
The Bruins had some layups during their six-game winning streak – including games against basement dwellers like Calgary and the New York Rangers – when they faced four different teams on the second night of back-to-backs, and certainly took advantage of those circumstances by building up a win streak.
But they also didn’t face a single team that would be considered a legit Stanley Cup contender during the winning spree like they did in Dallas against the explosive, skilled Stars team. When facing elite competition, the flaws and foibles for the Bruins seemed all too familiar with first period penalties turning into Stars power-play goals and an early deficit that the Bruins couldn’t overcome.
Then Jason Robertson turned on NHL superstar mode in the third period and potted a pair of goals among his ridiculous 17 shot attempts for the game, a stretch that saw Jeremy Swayman pulled from the game and the Bruins knocked completely on their heels for the first time since back-to-back 6-2 losses to the Canadiens and Senators right before the Christmas holiday during a dreadful homestand.
“Two things we talked about were [winning] faceoffs and making sure we played the game 5-on-5 and we didn’t do that. We were pretty much chasing the game right from the hop. Against a team like that it’s going to be hard,” said Marco Sturm. “We have to learn from it. The way I see it, [the Stars] are a playoff team. But they are willing to play the style of game where they just grind it out and stick with it. We didn’t do it and we were playing cute all the way to the end, and we cannot do that.
"They were just better than us."
— NESN (@NESN) January 21, 2026
HC Marco Sturm keeps it real after the blowout loss to the Stars. pic.twitter.com/i5TVeHOSMD
“If it’s a tight game you can say we were in it right until the end, but we were not in it tonight. That for me is a positive because it shows us that we have to [learn to] play that style of game, and it’s not going to be a game like against Chicago every night. I see Vegas as exactly the same…same kind of style and play and same system, so are we willing to play that kind of game [against the Golden Knights]? We’ve got to go back to work.”
It continues to leave the Bruins wondering exactly where they stand with this season’s group as they search for a right shot defenseman after finishing as the runner-up to the Vegas Golden Knights in the Rasmus Andersson trade sweepstakes. Hockey Night in Canada’s Elliotte Friedman spilled the details in this week’s big trade as the lack of a contract extension for the big Swedish defenseman ended up being the hold-up for the Black and Gold in a theoretical deal where they were coughing up a lot of future assets.
"The Bruins believed they could get a deal done w/the Flames and do an extension,” said Friedman on his 32 Thoughts podcast earlier this week. “Everything changed on Sunday, Andersson’s agent [Claude Lemieux] called the Flames and said they were willing to go to Boston, but they weren’t doing an extension with anybody at this point. And the world flipped at that point...and the Bruins were out.”
It was a prudent move for the Bruins to decline that deal without certainty that the 30-year-old Andersson would be part of the long-term picture, but it underscores just how serious B’s management is about adding to this group. The reported offer for Andersson included Mason Lohrei, Matt Poitras and a first-round pick, though there were conflicting reports about whether the B’s ever offered the 2026 first round acquired from the Maple Leafs in the Brandon Carlo trade.
The question becomes just how much the Bruins should be willing to surrender in terms of future assets in order to help this season’s team, or if any trade giving up
