Bruins’ playoff berth put on hold
TAMPA — No fantastic fight to the finish in Florida.
The Bruins fell to the Lightning, 3-1, Wednesday night at Amalie Arena in a game that lacked the emotion and, frankly, the hate that was evident throughout Tuesday’s playoff-like win over the Panthers in Sunrise, Fla.
Sure, there were some big hits, after-the-whistle scrums, and even some fisticuffs, but the snarl factor never hit the level it reached against the Panthers or what’s normally witnessed between these two frequent postseason foes.
“I didn’t think either team was really on top of their game to be honest,” said Bruins coach Jim Montgomery. “It was a game where I think they were traveling back from the West Coast, so I don’t think they were as sharp as they’ve been and the intensity and the emotion in the game was not the same as it was for us [Tuesday] night.”
It’s natural for teams to have a letdown on the second of back-to-back nights, particularly when they’re coming off a big win over a fierce rival.
“[Tuesday] night there was a lot of emotion in that game. There was a lot of the physical product
that also contributes, and you win a big game like that where we’re sky high and then we got to come back and we got to play an elite team in the league again,” said Montgomery. “It’s a hard schedule.”
David Pastrnak said the drop-off in play was evident.
“Tough loss. Obviously, we weren’t at our best. We didn’t deserve to win,” said Pastrnak, who assisted on Boston’s only goal and has 102 points on the season. “I think the outcome is just as it should be.”
The loss prevented Boston (42-1715) a chance to clinch a postseason berth. The Bruins will get another opportunity Saturday against the suddenly surging Capitals in Washington.
As expected, the Bruins came out with heavy legs to start the second end of their Florida double dip.
The Lightning (40-25-7) carried the play for most of the first 10 minutes, with Nikita Kucherov and Brayden Point each landing testers on Linus Ullmark, who was able to push them aside.
The hosts took the lead when former UMass standout Mitchell Chaffee canned his fourth of the season.
Nick Paul slipped a pass past Hampus Lindholm’s stick check and right to Chaffee, who beat the backcheck of James van Riemsdyk and lofted a soft floater over Ullmark’s right shoulder.
Van Riemsdyk was called for holding a few shifts later, but the Bruins penalty kill was on its toes and squashed it with ease.
Charlie McAvoy nearly tied it when his rising wrister beat Andrei Vasilevskiy but clanged off the crossbar.
Boston pulled even on Danton Heinen’s 15th goal of the campaign.
Pastrnak chased a Parker Wotherspoon dump-in and picked Matt Dumba’s pocket behind the Tampa net. He fed it to Pavel Zacha, who tapped a backhander to Heinen, who buried a quick wrister.
It was the 15th goal of the season for Heinen, who now has 30 points, including 9 in his last dozen games.
The Heinen-Zacha-Pastrnak line has performed well of late, but that was of little consolation to Boston’s leading scorer.
“I mean it was a good goal, but we only got one,” he said.
Moments later Tanner Jeannot crumpled Lindholm into the boards and Trent Frederic took exception, going after the Lightning winger.
Jeannot ended the kerfuffle quickly, landing an uppercut to Frederic’s jaw that forced the Bruin winger to hang on.
The Lightning came out of the second similarly to the first, with just a couple more ounces of juice than their visitors.
Point put the Lightning back ahead, 2-1, with his 42d of the season.
Point — he skates and cuts just like Brad Marchand — collected a rebound of Emil Lilleberg blast off the backboards and, without a defender in the area, wrapped it around and into the open net.
“I’ve just got to check off and meet him at that far post,” said Bruins defenseman Andrew Peeke, who got hung up at the net front. “That’s just a little D zone thing and, obviously, it was a nice wraparound by him, but I just got to check off and try and meet him at that post earlier if I can.”
The Bruins came to life over the second half of the period and Pastrnak drew a couple of penalties (tripping calls on Steven Stamkos and Anthony Duclair), but the Bruins were not able to mount a sustained attack or crack Vasilevskiy during the manadvantages.
The Lightning were content to sit on the lead in the third and were able to thwart Boston’s uprising with tight checking and the wall that is Vasilevskiy.
Nikita Kucherov sealed it with an empty-netter, his 42nd goal and 123rd point of the season.
“It was a heck of a game by our group [Tuesday] and too bad we couldn’t kind of roll it over to [Wednesday],” said Pastrnak. “We have to move on and learn [from it].”