A pair of strikes on Igor Shesterkin within a 16-second span in the second period had the Bruins sitting pretty through 40 minutes of play Wednesday night. But a third-period letdown on the special teams front paved the way for a New York comeback and ultimately another gut-punch of a Boston loss, this one by a 3-2 final at Madison Square Garden.

For the Rangers, the game-winning strike came with the Blueshirts down a man, and was scored by Boxford, Mass. native Chris Kreider with 8:06 remaining in the third period of a then-tied game.

Kreider’s strike was a notable follow-up to a Vincent Trocheck deflection that came six and a half minutes prior, and just moments after a Brad Marchand penalty expired. With Marchand not even back in his defensive zone at the time of Trocheck finding the back of the net, it was by all means a power-play goal for the Rangers, even if it didn’t count for one in the end-of-night box score.

At the other end of the rink, Boston’s goals came from David Pastrnak and Elias Lindholm, while the Boston attack mustered just 17 shots by the night’s end. This was the seventh time this season that the Bruins finished a game with fewer than 20 shots on goal, which is something they had done just seven times in total over the previous eight seasons (618 games dating back to the 2016-17 season).

Tonight was the 7th time this season that the Bruins finished a game with fewer than 20 shots on goal. They finished with fewer than 20 shots on goal in a game just seven times over the previous eight seasons combined (618 games).

— Ty Anderson (@_TyAnderson) February 6, 2025

This game followed a familiar trend for the Bruins, as their best looks came with Pastrnak on the ice.

In Pastrnak’s 16 minutes of five-on-five time on ice, the Bruins broke even with the Rangers on the shot board, at 7-7, and outscored ’em by a 1-0 margin. With Pastrnak on the bench at five-on-five play, the Bruins were outshot 12-5 and outscored 2-1.

The Bruins will wrap up their pre-4 Nations Face-Off break schedule Saturday afternoon against the Golden Knights.

Sweeney provides glimpse into deadline

Locally, Bruins general manager Don Sweeney has not been heard from since his press conference following the firing of then-head coach Jim Montgomery back in November.

But nationally, Sweeney has made his rounds as the general manager of Team Canada for the upcoming 4 Nations Face-Off, and even did an in-game interview with the TNT broadcast team during Wednesday night’s showdown between the Bruins and Rangers at Madison Square Garden. And though nine of the 10 questions thrown Sweeney’s way were related to Team Canada and the upcoming tournament, Brian Boucher was able to toss one Bruins-centric question Sweeney’s way regarding the potential plans for a Black and Gold club that’s currently on the outside looking in in the Eastern Conference playoff race.

“It’s been a little unique for us this year getting out of the gate not as fast as we would’ve liked [so] we’re In the middle of things,” Sweeney, whose team currently sits in ninth place, acknowledged. “It’s a tough exercise to sort of play both sides of the street, but that’s almost year what a general manager is required to do, to test what’s out there, what’s available, and how you can improve, hopefully.

“We have some areas we would like to [improve], but we have to keep an eye.”

This is basically a variation of B’s president Cam Neely’s ‘preparing for two paths’ comments last month, and they could arguably hold more weight now given the B’s 5-4-1 record since those remarks.

But for Sweeney, it’s clear that he’s not ready to throw the towel in on the season, especially with the B’s top left-side defenseman (Hampus Lindholm) out for the majority of the season to date.

“We’ve missed Hampus Lindholm all year [or] at least the last 40 games, and it’s affected our group,” said Sweeney. “But everybody goes through injuries. You gotta battle through it, gotta find a way to while I’m out there trying to improve our club. If we have more injuries or we don’t do the job between now and the deadline, we may have to take a different path.”

The problem for the Bruins is that the math is certainly working against ’em to this point, with a games played disadvantage against every single team they’re chasing or being chased by. The Bruins have also found themselves unable to capitalize on nights where those clubs lose with a win of their own on a relatively consistent basis, while the same old problems continue to creep into Boston’s game just when you find yourself ready to put even an ounce of believability into this club.

If the Bruins choose to venture down a seller’s path, all eyes will be on what the Bruins do with team captain and pending unrestricted free agent Brad Marchand. But the Bruins will have other potential assets to move in fellow pending UFAs Justin Brazeau and Trent Frederic, along with pending restricted free agent Morgan Geekie. Depending on their level of selling, the Bruins could also attempt to gauge the market on this-year-and-next ‘rentals’ like middle-six forward Charlie Coyle and defenseman Andrew Peeke and see if there’s a deal that makes sense from a maximum value standpoint.

The Bruins, who lost by a 3-2 final to the Rangers on Wednesday night, currently have a 70 percent chance of missing the 2025 postseason, according to PlayoffStatus.com.

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