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Bruins fall in Tampa; Lucic appears in court |
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Ty Anderson
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For the first time all season, the Bruins abandoned their goaltending rotation Monday night in Tampa Bay, as Jeremy Swayman became the first B’s netminder to get consecutive starts.
And it honestly could not have gone worse for Jim Montgomery’s club — though through no real fault of Swayman, you’d say — as the 18 skaters in front of Swayman ‘rewarded’ Swayman with a season-high 47 shots against on the way to a 5-4 overtime loss to the Lightning.
The loss also came with a bad habit of this year’s hot start coming back to the surface, as the Bruins surrendered the game-tying goal with 4.9 seconds left in regulation. According to NaturalStatTrick dot com, this was Boston’s sixth goal surrendered against an empty net this season, which is tops in the league through the first month and a half of the new campaign. Now, the flip side of that is that when you’ve been as good as the B’s have been out of the gate this season, you’re going to have more time against an empty-net than most (that’s indeed the case, as they’re the only team to have over 24 minutes against an empty net), meaning you’re area to get torched by ‘em is greater.
But the Bruins had multiple chances to clear the puck, and failed on almost all of them.
Perhaps the most glaring error came on a 6-on-4 chance for the Bolts, as Brad Marchand was able to clear the puck out of the defensive zone but went for a cross-ice pass to Charlie Coyle to try to hit Coyle for an empty-net goal. The pass was knocked down by a Tampa Bay stick, and frankly didn’t even get close to Coyle. And as cliche as it may sound, that was a prime example of when simply skating or getting the puck in deep would’ve been the right call.
Derek Forbort and Pavel Zacha also had a pair of ugly failed clears, and it was Zacha’s that set the stage for the game-tying goal from the Lightning’s Steven Stamkos.
Nights like this always make it almost impossible to find ‘moral victories’ or accept consolation prizes, too, but this was far from the B’s best game of the season.
They were outshot by a staggering 47-27 mark, and if it wasn’t for the performance of Swayman (42 saves, including 19 in the first period), this one would’ve been over after 20 minutes.
Offensively, it was the David Pastrnak show once again, with Pastrnak on the board with a goal and an assist in the losing effort, while the Bruins also got third-period strikes from centers Johnny Beecher and Charlie Coyle.
Coyle’s goal continued what’s been a strong push from No. 13 to begin the 2023-24 campaign, with the Weymouth, Mass. native up to six goals and 15 points through 17 games. That has Coyle paced for what would be a 29-goal and 72-point campaign. That, with Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci no longer in the picture for the club, would be just what the doctor ordered for the Bruins.
With the loss, the Bruins fell to 13-1-3 on the campaign.
Lucic pleads not guilty
Off the ice, Tuesday morning saw Bruins forward Milan Lucic enter a not guilty plea at an arraignment in Boston. According to the police report, the 35-year-old Lucic, who was arrested late Friday night, is accused of choking his wife in an argument stemming over Lucic’s missing cell phone.
Lucic was released on personal recognizance bail and has a pretrial hearing set for Jan. 19.
It’s unclear how this will all play out, but it’s fair to expect that Lucic will remain away from the team on that ‘indefinite leave of absence’ for the foreseeable future.
And speaking personally, I'd be shocked if Lucic plays another game for this franchise.
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