Lightning nip B’s in overtime
Stamkos pots winner after Bolts blow two-goal edge
The Bruins have not been much for moral victories in a long time. They have simply been too good a team for that.
But right now, we don’t exactly know what kind of team the 2021-22 Bruins are. But in their 3-2 overtime loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday night, they showed the signs that maybe, just maybe, they are starting to develop their desired identity.
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Playing without their best forward (Brad Marchand, suspension) and best defenseman (Charlie McAvoy, non-COVID illness), as well as their head coach (Bruce Cassidy, COVID protocol) the B’s showed something that has been in short supply this year — moxie — dominating the Bolts all night and wiping out a two-goal deficit for a hard-earned point.
They could not get the second one. Just seconds after David Pastrnak was stopped on a breakaway, the Bolts broke the other way on a 2-on-1 and Steven Stamkos ripped a slap shot past Jeremy Swayman for the winner at 1:31 of OT.
The second point would have been nice, but the 60minute, no-passenger effort against a quality opponent might have been just as important as the W. The B’s outshot the Lightning 39-25, a count which didn’t include two Pastrnak post shots, and it would have been more lopsided if not for a flurry late in the third by Tampa.
“Getting that point is big. Obviously, we would have liked two but I thought through the ups and downs in the game, we kept on fighting,” said Curtis Lazar. “We played a lot of good hockey out there. Unfortunately it didn’t work out our way but there’s definitely stuff to build off of.”
After the B’s fell down 2-0, they evened it with a late second-period goal by Charlie Coyle and an early thirdperiod goal by Lazar. On the equalizer, Brandon Carlo’s dump-in took a funny bounce off the glass in the corner, then Tomas Nosek lifted a Tampa defender’s stick to allow the puck to get through to Lazar on the right wing. Lazar took it into the slot and beat Andrei Vasilevskiy on a pretty backhander at 4:44. Lazar’s first of the year was timely.
A more fragile team might have given up long before that point.
They appeared poised to take a lead after Zach Bogosian high-sticked Craig Smith in the first period. On the ensuing power play, the B’s top unit threw just about everything it had at Vasilevskiy but could not beat him.
To relieve pressure, the Bolts threw the puck up the middle to get it out of the zone. Mike Reilly knocked it down to prevent it from going the distance, but all that served to do was put the puck on tee for Taylor Raddysh. The Tampa wing battled up the ice with Reilly, who eventually lost that battle. With Reilly playing against Raddysh’s strong side, the Bolt was allowed to somehow get the puck on his forehand then go back to his backhand to beat Swayman, who looked like he didn’t know how to defend the shot and he left the short-side wide open. It was the first goal of Raddysh’s NHL career and the B’s were down 1-0. Ouch.
Allowing goals like that was not how the undermanned B’s wanted to go about beating the two-time defending Stanley Cup champs, even one missing their most explosive player in Nikita Kucherov.
The frustration would continue in the second period.
The B’s came out guns blazing, firing the first six shots on net, but the Bolts gained a 2-0 lead before they even put a real shot on net in the second.
As they were most of the night, the B’s top line was buzzing the Tampa zone on an early shift in the second period and came very close to evening the game when Pastrnak hit his second post of the game and third in two games. Then a Carlo shot broke through Vasilevskiy and hit the outside of the post.
But just as a Garden crowd’s roar was dying down from the action at the other end, Ondrej Palat gained the Boston zone and tried to send a centering pass from the left wing. Nosek was in the right place to keep it from getting through, but the puck went off his skate and went right between Swayman’s pads at 3:36. Double ouch.
To their credit, the B’s kept coming.
“Our guys, we’re tightly knit. We talk a lot, especially in the third period,” said Lazar. “We knew we did a lot of good things. We just talked about staying the course. That was the most important thing. We did a good job reloading, keeping pucks alive, attacking their net. Unfortunately, we just couldn’t get one more by him. But I liked our game. We stayed composed.”
It was the Coyle line that finally got them on the board with 3:30 left. Vasilevskiy could not control a rebound of a Smith shot and the much improved Erik Haula made a brilliant, nolook, between-the-legs backhand pass to Coyle on the left side and he buried his seventh of the season to pull the B’s within a goal.
The B’s eventually tied it on the fourth-line goal early in the third and Swayman atoned for the first goal with some big saves down the stretch to allow the B’s to get that one point before Stamkos finally won it.
But, as Lazar said, the game certainly looked like something the B’s could build off. It was a fun night at the Garden. Let’s see if they can make anything more out of it.