B’s blow late lead, suffer more OT pain
The Bruins were in position to close out a game a strugling Vancouver Canucks team on Saturday night, but their seasonlong problem of closing out games resurfaced yet again.
The B’s coughed up a late 2-0 lead and then took a too-many-men penalty in overtime in their fifth straight game to go to extra time. And on the power play, Brock Boeser tipped home a J.T. Miller pass to lift the Canucks to a 3-2 win at Rogers Arena.
After taking a 2-0 lead in the second period, the B’s went into a defensive shell and it cost them dearly.
“Besides maybe a couple of shifts, I didn’t like the way we sat back, it felt like,” coach Jim Montgomery told NESN. “You’ve got to give Vancouver credit. I thought they were pushing really hard in the second, dominating us territorially. We were hanging on, probably because of (Jeremy Swayman, 36 saves). We were playing and trying to execute the right things. But that’s an elite team that lost four in a row. They were playing with some desperation. (But) it’s not acceptable that we don’t close that game out up 2-0 in the third.”
The B’s had a brutal night in the faceoff circle, losing 61 percent of the draws, including 32 of of 43 defensive zones. And faceoff losses led to the two Vancouver goals in the third period. Montgomery also switched up his power play units — putting Jake DeBrusk and Morgan Geekie on the top unit — but the PP regressed, going 0-for-4. They could have put the game away when they got their last chance early in the third but they didn’t. And then the Canucks took up residency in Bruins’ zone for the rest of the night.
The Bruins scored both their goals in the second period.
The first one came at 5:27 on another fourth line goal. Off a neutral zone faceoff win, Juston Brazeau bulled his way into the offensive zone and made a terrific pass to Jesper Boqvist for a pretty tuck inside the near post for his third of the season.
Then they took a 2-0 lead at 11:15 on greasy third line goal. Geekie dumped the puck behind the net for Trent Frederic, who tried to stuff it home. That failed, but the puck went to Danton Heinen in the crease and he jammed it home for his 11th goal of the season.
“There were a lot of positives that we can build off and a lot of good things came from it,” said Swayman, choosing to look at the bright side. “We’re going to move on as a team and learn from it.”
But that was the end of the positives for the night.
The B’s were playing too much time in their own zone, especially after their fourth failed power play to start the third period.
Vancouver finally got on the board at 12:49 of the third. J.T. Miller beat Pavel Zacha cleanly on a faceoff to Swayman’s left, getting it back to Nikita Zadorov at the point. The big defenseman got to sniper Brock Boeser on the left wing and her buried it past Swayman’s blocker. It was the Canucks’ first goal against the B’s in five-plus periods this season.
It wasn’t their last. With 1:11 left in regulation and goalie Thatcher Demko pulled for the extra skater, the Canucks won another faceoff in the Boston zone and Filip Hronek blasted a blue line shot that, with Boeser in front, Swayman could not catch up to with his glove.
“Good teams find ways to finish out those games and we consider ourselves a good team,” said Heinen. “We definitely put pressure on ourselves to close those out. So that’s disappointing. But we’ll put it behind us and learn from it.”
Swayman even had to make a great save on Connor Garland in the final minute for the B’s to even get the loser point.
But things quickly went awry in overtime. After Brad Marchand, who had a quiet night along with every other forward in the top six, lost the puck attacking the net, he turned to the bench for a change.
But with the Canucks breaking out for what would have been an oddman rush, DeBrusk jumped on the ice far too early and the B’s were rightly called for too-many-men at 1:09. Just 25 seconds later, Boeser scored his second to end the game and send the B’s on to Seattle with a lot