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Playing host to an Ottawa Senators team that’s won just two of their last 10 contests, starting Robin Lehner (a goalie with two wins in 10 career games against the Bruins), allowing the second-most shots per game, and one that fired their head coach four days ago mind you, you could make the case that the Boston Bruins were in prime position for a slump-busting afternoon of sorts on TD Garden ice.
That was far from reality, though, as the Bruins blew two different one-goal leads before falling to Bobby Ryan and the Sens in the shootout, dropping the Saturday affair by a 3-2 final.
And if this isn’t rock bottom for the Black and Gold, I’m simply not sure what will be.
The day began on a strong note for the Bruins, however, with Craig Cunningham taking advantage of a fortuitous bounce at his own blue line, and breaking in on a shorthanded rush and planting the puck through Lehner for the first goal of his NHL career. It was a goal that Lehner would certainly like to have back, but also a deserved one for Cunningham, who’s been a seamless fit on Boston’s bottom six.
“Very good. Played well,… a curt Claude Julien said of Cunningham’s performance. “Everything. Skated well, you know, he competes hard. All things that we know about him.…
Skating on a line with Milan Lucic and Chris Kelly, Cunningham carved out a solid 15-minute night, finishing the game with three shots and two hits.
Ottawa matched Cunningham’s goal just 2:24 into the second frame, though, when Mika Zibanejad deked Tuukka Rask out for his eighth goal of the season, with Mike Hoffman picking up the assist (his fifth of the year). For the 21-year-old Zibanejad, it was his fifth goal in as many games, and brought a spark of life back to a Senator squad that was determined to match chance for chance with Boston.
The Black and Gold countered just eight minutes, however, with Kevan Miller storming in, and delivering a gorgeous pass to Loui Eriksson, who buried home his fifth goal of the season.
It was Eriksson’s second goal in the last three games, giving him 15 in 91 games as a Bruin.
“I think for me personally I can put some more shots on net. When I get those chances to put it on net I have to take those,… Eriksson said of the pressure to shoot and score with more regularity. “I’m not trying to think too much about it. Of course I scored a lot of goals in Dallas when I played there, it was kind of a different system. But hopefully I can keep it going, it was nice to get one tonight and hopefully I can build on that.…
(With a 15-goal sample size, if there’s one notable attribute when it comes to Eriksson’s scoring, it’s his streakiness. Of those 15, 10 have come via two goals in four games spurts for the veteran Swede. That’s nowhere near the consistency Eriksson had during his aforementioned Dallas years.)
But once again, the B’s lead would not hold.
On a third period power play with Zdeno Chara in the box, the Sens executed behind some patient blue-line work from Kyle Turris and Erik Karlsson, before David Legwand banked it by Rask.
When the Bruins failed to convert on their lone power play of the afternoon some two minutes later, it was a strong finish from each netminder that forced overtime in the Hub. When that didn’t yield a goal for either side -- the B’s overtime was headlined by another straight-up terrible 3-on-1 without a shot -- it was time for Boston’s third shootout of the year.
And with goals from Zibanejad and Ryan, the Sens took the win.
The importance of earning points when you shouldn’t has been one of the focal points of Boston’s struggles as of late, but this is case where the Bruins deserved the two and settled for one.
It’s just as frustrating, really.
“We’re obviously struggling to score goals and we continue to see that from our hockey club, but there’s a lot of other things in our game that could be better and I didn’t think we moved the puck well from our back end and when you don’t do that it certainly takes away a good part of your offense,… Julien said after the loss. “At the same time, there’s a lot of situations where we’re forcing things instead of making the right play so that again is probably guys trying so hard to try and turn this thing around, but overall we just need to be better and I don’t think this is good enough for our hockey club and we can definitely be better.
“I think we’re forcing plays and our execution and, you know, those kind of things, so we just need to be a little bit better in those kind of areas to win hockey games. Even at the end there we got another three on one in overtime, and we fanned on a shot, you know and normally with confidence that’s in the net, so those kind of things are what’s frustrating everybody right now.…
After dropping seven of their last nine, and off to their worst 30-game start during Claude Julien’s eight-year tenure behind the bench (15-13-2), it’s clear that this team is not where they want to be.
“I don’t know. We’ve got to do something, you know. Wake up,… B’s goaltender Tuukka Rask, who stopped 29-of-31 in the losing effort, said.
“The wake up call should have been a few weeks ago. We’ve been talking about it enough and it’s not going to get any better if we keep talking about it,… Rask continued. “We’ve just got to bury our heads down and work hard and good things are going to happen. But it’s really frustrating when you look at these mistakes and stuff we’re doing out there night in and night out. It’s just not the Bruins hockey.…
With the loss, the Bruins still remain in the driver’s seat of the second wild card spot in the East. But here’s the trouble with that-- They have a single point lead over the Florida Panthers (the ‘Cats have played three fewer games than Boston), three-point edge over Ottawa (one game in hand), and four-point edge over the New York Rangers (four games in hand over the Bruins). The gap is narrowing by the day.
Bergeron suffers apparent hand injury
Another dose of potential bad news for the Bruins-- Patrice Bergeron left the shootout loss late in the third period after taking a solid slash to the hand.
Bergeron would return, however, but clearly didn't look 100 percent.
"I have no idea. All I know is he came back," Julien said of Bergeron. "I come here right after we’re done so haven’t really had a chance to find out more."
The 29-year-old Bergeron has five goals and 20 points in 30 games played this season. He's also just one of eight Bruins players that's played in all 30 games this year.
Up next
The Black and Gold will kick off a three-game road trip on Tuesday night in Nashville when they visit Bridgestone Arena to play the upstart Predators. The Bruins beat the Preds in both of their 2013-14 meetings, but this version of the Preds comes with a bit more punch, as head coach Peter Laviolette, along with the skillful additions of a James Neal, Mike Ribeiro and emergence of Filip Forsberg has made Nashville a legitimate threat in the Western Conference this year. Oh, and a healthy Pekka Rinne sorta helps, too.
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