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When the Boston Bruins went up by a 3-1 score by way of two goals in 26 seconds in the opening minute plus of their third period against the Toronto Maple Leafs, it should have been game over.
The Leafs, among the worst teams in the league and entering play with zero (zero!) wins in 13 prior head-to-heads with Atlantic Division opponents, were without a timeout due to a wasted challenge, and quite simply aren’t a team that’s exactly built for third period comebacks. But with tip-ins from
Leo Komarov and
Nazem Kadri, and an overtime power-play strike from
P.A. Parenteau, the Leafs stole two points in the Hub while the Black and Gold blew yet another lead.
This has become commonplace for the Bruins. As much as it can, anyhow.
With last night’s loss, the Bruins dropped to 21-3-2 in games in which they’ve held a two-goal or more lead. On the surface, that 84.6 point percentage sounds good. But when you have the defensive unit and the goaltending strength that the Bruins do (and the fact that two-goal leads have always been nearly impossible to lose throughout Claude Julien’s tenure in the Hub), this shouldn’t happen.
And it speaks to the greater issue at hand, which is the B’s repeatedly leaving points on the table.
“You know with the way things are right now in the standings you can’t give up points like that and it’s what it’s going to come down to at the end of the year,”
Brad Marchand, who scored two goals last night (his 21st and 22nd of the year), said after last night’s loss. “Every point right now is huge.. Good teams don’t lose games like that and we’ve done it a few times. We have some stuff we need to continue to work on and maybe confidence is a factor but something we definitely have to work on.”
In what feels like a continuation of last year’s finish, the Black and Gold are beginning to look more like the weathered group that too often appeared to simply go through their motions of their games. You can’t ignore the positives established before the break -- the Bruins had won five of their last seven heading into the break, largely on the back of a resurgence from all-world netminder
Tuukka Rask -- but there’s ugliness in their play. Particularly in their own end.
Look at the three Toronto tallies that forced this game to overtime. They were all tip-ins and deflections from or around the slot. That’s something that clearly bothered the B’s bench boss after the defeat.
“To me, it’s poor coverage. And all three goals were kind of tipped from just probably ten to fifteen feet from our net, so the slot area was not covered very well,” Boston coach
Claude Julien said following the defeat, their 16th at home overall this year (11-13-3). “We know they like to shoot for those tips, and we didn’t do a good enough job of taking care of that. So they did a good job of tipping those pucks. It’s something they work at, and again, the coverage wasn’t how it should have been.”
You don’t want to look at these games and call them ‘must wins’ because in all honesty, you shouldn’t have to. These are straight-up scheduled victories, and the Bruins came up short once again. While you recognize the fact that the Bruins and Maple Leafs had played close games all year long, this was your first home game out of the break. You had a week to get away from the rink, forget about your home woes, and build some positive momentum in your own barn against a basement club. And you couldn’t.
At this point, this is undoubtedly concerning.
From here, the Bruins (basically) play on an every other day basis. On a roster that was less than 100 percent and older than they were a year ago, this proved to absolutely kill them a season ago. And while injuries haven’t crushed the Bruins just yet -- although I’d argue that this team misses both
Adam McQuaid (upper-body) and
Chris Kelly (broken femur) quite badly of late -- their inability to generate the consistent performances and positive momentum has been brutal.
But bailed out by the general malaise of the Atlantic -- both Montreal and Ottawa appear to have no interest in catching the Bruins in the hunt for third place or the wild card -- the B’s have been lucky.
At a certain point, however, luck has its way of running out on you.
“Good teams, they put lots of games together. And it seems we play a few games good, then a few games we let slip away,”
David Krejci said. “Obviously we have a long way to be a great team. We have to learn from those mistakes but this is the time to do it. We don’t want to be playing catch-up hockey in March or April. So any point is crucial and we definitely let this one slip away from us.”
Fortunately for the Bruins, they’ll now embark on a home-and-home with a Buffalo Sabres squad that’s just one point ahead of the Columbus Blue Jackets for the worst record in the Eastern Conference, a two-game swing that should come with the results the Bruins simply need this time of year.
In other words, let the ‘must wins’ begin.
Postgame Podcast with the New England Hockey Journal's Andy Merritt
Ty Anderson has been covering the National Hockey League for HockeyBuzz.com since 2010, has been a member of the Pro Hockey Writers Association's Boston Chapter since 2013, and can be contacted on Twitter, or emailed at Ty.AndersonHB[at]gmail.com.
Boston Bruins Blogger •Bruins Feature Columnist • 
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