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Bruins can't complete comeback vs. Ducks |
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Ty Anderson
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Let’s start with the good news: Morgan Geekie and the Bruins scored a game-tying goal with the goalie pulled for the first time this season. The Bruins even won a challenge to make it so. The goal, which came with just 71 seconds remaining in regulation, was enough to earn the Bruins a much-needed point.
But the bad news is that the Bruins could not do enough to earn the equally much-needed second point, as it was Leo Carlsson who captured the win for Anaheim behind an overtime burial through the Bruins’ Jeremy Swayman with 1:21 remaining in the extra session of a 3-2 final at TD Garden.
“I thought as the game went on, we stuck with it, and to their credit, they found a way,” Bruins interim head coach Joe Sacco said after the one-point outing. “It’s disappointing we didn’t grab the extra point, especially after grabbing momentum like that late in the game.
“But you know, every point matters right now.”
But the Bruins’ need to claw back into this game came with a familiar pattern on display once again, as the Bruins allowed a pair of quick-strike tallies late in the first period and allowed a goal in the final two minutes of a period for the 24th time on the campaign. The markers, which came from Trevor Zegras and then Frank Vatrano, continued to highlight what’s been an obviously frustrating trend for the Bruins.
Booed off the ice at the end of the first period, the Bruins responded with a bang in the second period, and put themselves on the board with a 5-on-3 goal scored by Elias Lindholm.
The Bruins continued to pour the pressure on the Ducks’ John Gibson in what was ultimately a 13-shot frame from the hometown club, but the Lindholm tally would be the only thing the B’s had to show for their work before a third period that came with a switch in goal from Anaheim.
But the Bruins could not capitalize on a cold Lukas Dostal early in the third period, and Dostal instead shined, including a pair of big-time stops on Geekie well before his game-tying tally.
And even in the overtime frame, the Bruins had a good look from Geekie, but found themselves denied by Dostal, which quickly set up the Ducks going the other way on Jeremy Swayman for the victory.
With an assist on the Lindholm goal, B’s superstar David Pastrnak extended his point streak to 14 games. It’s the second 14-game point streak of Pastrnak’s career, and it is longest single-season point streak by a Bruins player since Phil Kessel had a point in 18 straight games during the 2008-09 season. (Pastrnak, Brad Marchand, and Patrice Bergeron all had point streaks of at least 14 games between Kessel’s streak and Pastrnak’s current streak, but all three of those streaks spanned over two seasons.)
On the backend, and in what could be the norm for the foreseeable future, the Bruins played this game without both their No. 1 and No. 2 defenders, with Charlie McAvoy (upper-body injury) joining Hampus Lindholm (lower-body injury) on the shelf for the Bruins. It could’ve been even worse for the B’s, too, with Mason Lohrei coming into this game as a game-time decision with an illness. Lohrei ultimately suited up for this contest and finished with two assists and four shots in 22:57 of time on ice.
And while Lohrei was a question mark leading up to the game, the game itself came with another scare for the Bruins and captain Brad Marchand. In what first looked like something that was developing into a rather harmless play, Marchand found himself sliding towards the benches, but appeared to hit the back of his head against the boards right in front of the Anaheim bench.
Marchand was unable to get to his feet, and ultimately departed down the Boston tunnel after a few moments, but returned and took regular shifts after a brief-but-painful absence.
The Bruins will return to action Tuesday night when they play host to the Maple Leafs at TD Garden. Toronto has taken two straight head-to-heads over the Bruins, which is the Black and Gold’s longest losing streak against the Maple Leafs since a four-game slide that ran from Nov. 2021 through Nov. 2022.
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