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After a four-game conditioning stint with the Providence Bruins, Boston backup Niklas Svedberg’s welcoming back to the NHL lasted just 20 minutes, as the Dallas Stars stomped over the Boston Bruins for three first-period goals, and battled their way through the Boston power play for a 5-3 victory at TD Garden.
“I played like [expletive],… Svedberg, who departed after stopping just seven of 10, said after the loss. "So, that's about all I can say."
The Dallas barrage started 7:28 into the first, when a David Krejci turnover gave Stars’ forward Vern Fiddler a breakaway, and his seventh goal of the season by way of a roofed shorthanded tally. The goal was the Bruins’ first shorthanded goal against in 2014-15, and the result of what Claude Julien called ‘carelessness’ from his top-end talents, a theme of the night for the B’s benchboss. What made it worse, too, was the fact that it came on a completely disjointed five-minute power play from the Black and Gold.
"Poor work ethic on the power play," Julien said. "We talk about the lack of power plays we get, and tonight we get some and we don’t do anything with it so we only have ourselves to look at and blame ourselves for this, not only the power play but this loss."
Krejci, the forward-turned-defenseman on the power play, agreed.
“Just sucks, that’s the only word I got,… a frustrated Krejci said of his team’s power play after the loss. “We’ve been working on it in practices but it’s no good so that’s where we’re at right now.…
Krejci responded, however, with a goal just three minutes after Fiddler’s, giving the Czech center his first goal since Jan. 15. It was an easy finish that came off a great redirect from David Pastrnak, with Milan Lucic picking up the secondary assist via the grunt-work along the halfwall.
But the Stars countered almost immediately, with captain Jamie Benn striking with his 17th and 18th goals of the season just 3:15 apart, pushing Dallas out to a 3-1 edge after 20 minutes.
The 25-year-old Svedberg took the blame for the goals, especially Benn’s first, which came as a result of Svedberg playing too deep in his crease and allowing Benn to pick the top of the net with ease.
“I didn’t cover the short side there on the second goal. I mean, they scored two more goals," Svedberg said. "The most technical was the second goal, I guess, was the really bad goal.
“What matters is that I played like [expletive] and we lost the game. So, I think I should take the blame for this loss and I think I played a poor game. Obviously Tuukka [Rask] has played a lot of games lately so he needed a night off and this was a time when I needed to step up, despite not playing that much up here at least. This was an important game for our team and for me to step up, and I failed. So it’s pretty simple.…
With the keys turned to Rask for the second period, the Bruins battled back, tied the score up at 3-3 by way of goals from Patrice Bergeron (a shorthanded goal) and Dougie Hamilton. But even in a second period that was all Boston, the B’s still found themselves behind after 40 when the Stars scored their second shorthanded goal of the night, this time from defenseman Trevor Daley.
“We didn’t really do anything on our power play,… Rask said of a B’s power play that went 0-for-3, including whiffs on a five-minute and four-minute chance (though a Carl Soderberg penalty negated the second half of the double-minor opportunity). “It looked like a lot of times it just took the momentum out from us. Up and down game; we played, we showed some real good shifts and then just awful shifts and fell short.…
Dallas winger Erik Cole put the finishing touches on a Stars win with an empty-net strike with 32 seconds left, but in a third period that included a near nine-minute stretch between shots for the Black and Gold, the lack of execution and lackadaisical mistakes were too much for the B’s to overcome.
“It is something that we have sort it out,… Boston captain Zdeno Chara said of the team’s lapses. “We know that we have been better the last little while but again the last two, three games, we started to have mental breakdowns and started drifting away from the game plan. That is something we can’t go back to.…
With the loss and a Florida win, the Bruins’ wild card lead has been cut down to a mere six points, with Florida having three games in hand still, showing that this group of Bruins are far from out of the woods.
Random thoughts and notes
- Claude Julien defends his players like no other. But even Julien couldn’t hold himself back from critiquing some of his best players after this one, even if he didn’t name names. “It has to come from within,… the B’s coach said after the loss, his club’s third in the last four games. Julien has sent messages as of late, including dropping Reilly Smith down to the fourth line (though he didn’t do that tonight), and did it late in this one, too, by removing Milan Lucic off the power play.
"I can give game plans and I can do a lot of things, but I can’t play for them," said Julien. "It’s got to come from within and you talk about a dressing room and, you know, wanting to do that. We’ve got a tough road trip coming up, and you’ve heard me say that often. I don’t think we can panic, but the one thing we can do is we can wake up and realize what needs to be done here, and it’s going to take some good efforts, some grit as you mentioned, win battles with some determination, and, you know, and right now we don’t have a lot of guys doing that."
- Former Boston Bruin Tyler Seguin probably should have sat this one out, all things considered. The ultra-talented forward missed the club’s morning skate with flu-like symptoms, and though he managed to suit up for this one, was throwing up between periods according to his teammates. Still, Seguin skated, finishing the night with two shots and a plus-1 rating in just over 18 minutes of time on ice.
“It was a tough one,… Seguin admitted. “Playing in Boston, I mean, I couldn’t not play. If we were playing somewhere else, maybe I wouldn’t have gone, but again, I thought it was a pretty solid win for our team.…
- Some 600 tickets were still available for tonight’s game according to one arena official I talked to before the game, and though the MBTA rail service was completely shut down for this one (a huge issue given how much of Boston Bruins gameday traffic flows in via North Station), you gotta applaud the sheer number of Black and Gold enthusiasts that found their way to the Garden for this one. And with the help of the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, shuttle buses were able to bring approximately 2,400 people to tonight’s contest. Nice effort from the Bruins, and a nice showing from everybody in the stands. Loud, too.
Up next
The Boston Bruins will begin a brutal five-game road swing with stops in western Canada, St. Louis, and Chicago on Friday night, with the first stopping coming in Vancouver for a showdown with the Canucks. It will be the B’s first 2014-15 look at a new look Canuck squad featuring old rival Ryan Miller in the crease.
Ty Anderson has been covering the Boston Bruins for HockeyBuzz.com since 2010, is a member of the Pro Hockey Writers Association's Boston Chapter, and can be contacted on Twitter, or emailed at Ty.AndersonHB[at]gmail.com