5 goals, but 0 points for leaky Bruins
Defense, goaltending doesn’t hold up
The Bruins, in theory, are built on goaltending and defense. Neither was on display at the Garden on Thursday night.
Jeremy Swayman allowed a half dozen goals while the B’s defensemen could not clear the front of the net or the rebounds he was giving up, leading to a 6-5 loss and spoiling a spirited Bruin comeback attempt.
With Charlie McAvoy in the box for hooking Jeff Carter after the Penguin veteran got behind him, Sidney Crosby put the Penguins up 6-5 when his shot from the top of the left circle deflected off Hampus Lindholm and through Swayman’s pads with 8:41 left in the third.
The biggest surprise of the night was that that was the final score. The B’s pulled Swayman with 2:41 left and they had their chances to tie, but Pittsburgh did a good job getting in front of goalie Alex Nedeljkovic to limit the pucks that got to the net.
“We dug ourselves into too many holes,” said Charlie Coyle. “It’s great to see our fight back. It is. But we don’t like to play that way.”
After trailing by three goals early in the second period, the B’s clawed back to tie with two goals in the second and then a beauty of a shorthanded goal by Brad Marchand at 3:08 of the third period. Coyle bulled his way through the neutral zone before moving it to Marchand at the blue line for a one-on-one battle with Kris Letang.
Moving to his right, Marchand made a smart stick check on Letang to get back on his forehand and then roofed it over Nedeljkovic to make it 5-5. It was the B’s first shorty of the year and Marchand’s second of the night.
But the B’s couldn’t iron out their details, especially on the chances they were allowing.
“I don’t like our ice management. I don’t like the odd-man rushes we gave up, whether it’s on the power play or 5-on5. Giving up an odd man cost us the penalty that ended up giving them the sixth goal,” said coach Jim Montgomery. “It’s just we’re not making sound decisions. We’re forcing stuff when we don’t need to. We were getting plenty of offense. We don’t have to force offense. Unfortunately, our game management cost us the game.”
The first period was a wild one, and not in a good way for the Bruins or their goaltender, who gave up four goals in the opening 15:58, a highly unusual sight for either Boston goalie this season.
It started with so much promise, as the B’s took the first lead of the game just 41 seconds in, with Marchand sweeping home a rebound of a David Pastrnak shot past Nedeljkovic.
But the Penguins almost immediately took control of the game and seized the lead on two goals in 1:13. First, Drew O’Connor tied it up after Swayman gave up a rebound off a Kris Letang shot.
Then Montgomery looked to his fourth line of Johnny Beecher, Georgii Merkulov and Oskar
Steen to give the team a momentum-changing shift. It didn’t work out that way. After a dominant Pittsburgh shift, Ryan Graves gave the Penguins a 2-1 lead on a deflected shot past Swayman, who didn’t have the best of luck on the night, either.
But just 22 seconds later, Pastrnak tied it up, taking a great Lindholm feed, throwing a fake to draw Nedeljkovic out and tucking a backhander behind him.
That, however, is where the back-and-forth ended for the period. Pittsburgh regained the lead 42 seconds after the Pastrnak goal on a nice play. Letang sent a long pass up the ice that bounced off the end boards and right to Crosby, who pulled it back and patiently waited for Jake Guentzel to arrive at the backdoor. Once there, Penguin captain found him for the goal.
When Lars Eller scored from bottom of the right circle at 15-58, it gave Pittsburgh the first twogoal lead of the game. At that point, wondering whether Swayman would last the game would have been fair.
“I knew it was going to be a back-and-forth game. Yes, we did think about (making a goalie change) but probably in the second,” said Montgomery. “Once before, I made a switch (with Swayman earlier in the season) and I wanted to see our goalie fight through it.
Sometimes you give them the opportunity to fight through it and when it’s a game that’s back and forth like that, I thought that was the opportunity to do it.”
It looked like Swayman might be able to right himself early in the second period. But he couldn’t stop all the bleeding. On a Pittsburgh power play, he stopped Crosby on two point blank shots from the slot. But just as Brandon Carlo was getting out the penalty box, the Pens pushed the lead to three when Carter scored on another rebound goal in tight.
But with the way the game was going, the B’s still weren’t out of it, if only they could get some shots on Nedeljkovic. At 9:51, they did just that. Pastrnak (1-2-3) made a beautiful cross-ice pass to Morgan Geekie (1-2-3), whose shot from the right wing — just the 12th of the game for the B’s — beat the goalie to make it 5-3.
Then after squandering a power play, the B’s scratched back to within a goal when Carlo’s slapper from the blue line was deflected by Jake DeBrusk by Nedeljkovic with 35.8 seconds left in the period. All of a sudden, the B’s were in striking distance headed into the third.
Though it looked like the B’s had the Pens right where they wanted, they just couldn’t close the deal.