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Swayman falters, Ullmark shines as B's fall in Ottawa |
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Ty Anderson
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The third straight start, while often a sign of a bonafide No. 1 goaltender in today’s game, has not been kind to the Bruins’ Jeremy Swayman this season. In fact, the third straight start for Swayman has often come with some of his worst results in a season full of inconsistencies and highs and lows.
And Thursday night in Ottawa, which marked Swayman’s third straight start dating back to last Saturday in Tampa, proved to be another low for him, as the Senators chased the Boston netminder with four goals on 15 shots in the opening frame on the way to a 6-3 Bruins loss at the Canadian Tire Centre.
Unable to handle Ottawa’s aggressive forecheck out of the gate in this game, the Bruins found themselves victimized by mere icings. But as the icings mounted and the lungs were struggling to keep up, the Senators struck with two goals in a span of five and a half minutes.
The Senators then pushed that lead out to three when Swayman appeared to get stuck trying to go post-to-post on a power-play feed from Brady Tkachuk out to Drake Batherson, while Ridley Greig scored just 22 seconds after the Batherson power-play goal to give Ottawa a four-opening frame.
Pulled after just 20 minutes of action, Joe Sacco’s move to Joonas Korpisalo for the start of the second period made Thursday night in Ottawa the shortest outing of the year for Swayman, beating his previous early hook of 29:32, which was ‘set’ in Carolina back on Halloween and after six goals on 22 shots.
The Bruins did their part to effort themselves back into this contest with second-period strikes from David Pastrnak and then Marat Khusnutdinov sandwiched around Batherson’s second goal of the evening, but the damage was done to that point. And was driven home by a huge late-period stop by Linus Ullmark on a great chance for the Bruins’ Mason Lohrei.
That Ullmark save set the tone for the remainder of the game, too, as Ullmark stopped all eight third-period shots he faced on the way to a 22-of-25 performance for the victory.
In addition to the markers from Pastrnak and Khusnutdinov (his first since coming from Minnesota to the Bruins via trade last week), Thursday also came with the first Black and Gold goal for trade deadline addition Casey Mittelstadt, scored in the opening frame.
But it was Khusnutdinov’s tally that was a real beauty, as he showed off his speed and skill (along with some finishing power) for a quick-strike look through Ullmark.
The loss was Boston’s first since last Friday’s trade deadline, and it will not get any easier for the club, as they’ll welcome the Lightning to town for a Saturday night showdown at TD Garden.
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