Late goal gives the B’s sinking feeling
Poor first two periods leads to defeat
The Bruins have gotten a taste of what playoff hockey will be like in their past two games against Metropolitan Division teams.
And they have come up lacking in both urgency and timely goaltending.
Linus Ullmark (26 saves) made a few high danger saves but was beaten on two long distance shots in the third period and the Bruins dropped their second straight, a 3-2 decision to the Flyers in Philadelphia.
But while those two goals were tough to swallow, Ullmark had made other key saves to keep the B’s in it. The lack of intensity with the puck in the offensive zone in the first 40 minutes against a team was even more bothersome. The B’s managed just 13 shot on net through two periods.
They did show some gumption in the third period by erasing a pair of one-goal deficits, but they wound up getting nothing out of the game, which is what they deserved off their first 40 minutes.
After failing to exploit a New York Rangers team that had two key defensemen missing in their loss on Thursday, the B’s also couldn’t beat a similarly shorthanded Flyers team, which was determined to play much tougher in their own zone than they did when they allowed six goals to the B’s last week.
“I just told the team, it’s what we’ve got to get used to. It’s what it’s going to be the rest of the year. You’ve got to have second and third efforts to create offense and you have to be desperate to get back above the dot defensively,” said coach Jim Montgomery.
The B’s also need to make more winning plays in crunch time. After he tied the game on a late goal, Danton Heinen tried to make a play with the puck back up to the point in the offensive zone
but Philly picked it off and went back the other way for an odd-man rush. Tyson Foerster, perhaps aided by a ramp-up off Brandon Carlo’s stick, was able to beat Ullmark with a shot from high on the left circle with 1:29 remaining. It held up as the game-winner.
Heinen conceded the puck needed to stay low, not only on that play but in general at this time of year.
“More simple hockey, you don’t want to turn pucks over. You look at their last goal. I turn the puck over and they go back down … that’s playoff hockey where it gets greasy and that’s how you score goals this time of year,” said Heinen.
The first period didn’t offer much by way of scoring chances for either team or entertainment except for an explosion of righteous indignation from captain Brad Marchand.
Cutting through the neutral zone, Flyer defenseman Erik Johnson stuck his left leg out and clipped Marchand in the left leg on a dangerous hit. After no call was forthcoming, Marchand erupted, screaming at the officials and banging his stick on the boards until he was tagged with a two-minute minor. The B’s killed it off and the teams went into the first break deadlocked at 0- 0.
Both teams had surges of offensive zone time in the second period. The B’s at one point had the Flyers hemmed in for over 2:00 in their own zone. Their best chance of the period came when James van Riemsdyk had Samuel Ersson down but could not lift the puck over him from the top of the crease, which has become the story of his season in which his shot percentage is a career low (8.0%).
When Andrew Peeke was called for a late period high-sticking penalty, the Flyers finally broke the ice at 18:15 on an ugly goal.
Jake Debrusk and Matt Grzelcyk got caught out high in the defensive zone, which left too much open ice down low. Scott Laughton fed Foerster in the slot and he fanned on the shot. Unfortunately for the Bruins, the mis-hit turned into a perfect pass to Travis Konecny at the side of the net.
Ullmark made a great pad save on Konecny but when the puck went airborne, Ullmark accidentally knocked it into the net with his blocker.
The Flyers nearly took a two-goal lead when Hampus Lindholm’s indecision in the offensive zone turned into a breakaway when a sprawled- out Johnson deflected Lindholm’s pass attempt that led to a breakaway for Laughton, who was stoned by Ullmark.
That kept the B’s in striking distance going into the third but the offense needed to crank it up. Despite the Flyers missing three defensemen on the back end (Nick Seeler, Rasmus Ristolainen and Jamie Drysdale), the B’s had managed just 12 shots on net. Flyer killer David Pastrnak, who missed the net on a good one-timer chance in the first period, had not hit the net yet.
In the third period, Montgomery changed his lines, putting Justin Brazeau up with Charlie Coyle and Marchand and, at 10:19, it paid off.
After a helter-skelter moment in the B’s zone, Mason Lohrei broke the puck out and fed Coyle on the right wing. Once in the zone, Coyle sifted a nice pass to Brazeau, rumbling toward the net. The big man with the soft hands cut across the crease and tucked a backhander past Ersson to even the game for his fourth goal and fifth point in three games.
Then things really picked up.
With 4:44 left in regulation, the Flyers regained the lead when, on a harmless looking rush, Konecny beat Ullmark with a long range shot from the left wing.
But just 56 seconds later, the B’s tied it up again. With the B’s changing, Morgan Geekie entered the Flyer zone 1- on- 4 but was able to protect the puck until he got help. He found it in the form of Heinen on the left wing. Geekie got it to him and Heinen buried it to make it 2-2.
The B’s looked poised to at least get a point out of this one. But after Ullmark stopped Owen Tippett on another breakaway, he let in Foerster’s GWG from the left wing with 1:29 left. The B’s pulled Ullmark for the ensuing faceoff for the extra skater, but they did not have another equalizer in them.
The playoff vibe continues this week. After two days off, the B’s travel to Florida for back- to- back games against the Panthers on Tuesday and the Lightning on Wednesday. If they take two periods off at a time against those teams like they did against the Flyers and Rangers, it won’t be pretty.