The prevailing theory going into this season was that this Boston Bruins team was not built to overcome multi-goal deficits. They simply did not appear to have enough talent or offensive depth.
With that in mind, a 2-0 hole at the first intermission of Monday’s matinee game against the Tampa Bay Lightning seemed virtually insurmountable. Surrendering a third goal just 39 seconds into the second period might as well have been lights out.
The Bruins did end up losing Monday, dropping to 3-1-0 on the season, but they didn’t go quietly. They did manage to mount an admirable comeback bid, and actually had a chance to tie the game on a late power play before ultimately falling short in a 4-3 defeat.
In the end, we learned two things about this Bruins team that can both be true. 1) They have some real fight, and might have more comeback ability than we initially thought. 2) They still can’t afford to start as slow and make as many mistakes as they did Monday.
Let’s start with the start, because it’s one several Bruins probably want a mulligan on. Just a minute into the game, Charlie McAvoy got caught snoozing – and not moving his feet – on the breakout, allowing Jake Guentzel to pick his pocket and bring the puck right back into the Boston end. Seconds later, Guentzel fed Anthony Cirelli for a backdoor tap-in to make it 1-0.
Later in the period, it was Nikita Zadorov handing the puck to Guentzel on a platter, putting an errant breakout pass right on the Tampa forward’s stick. Once again, Guentzel set up Cirelli seconds later to make it 2-0.
On the opening shift of the second period, it was Andrew Peeke losing the puck on the breakout, and this time it was Pontus Holmberg setting up Yanni Gourde for yet another tap-in goal.
With Hampus Lindholm still day-to-day with a lower-body injury, those are the Bruins’ de facto top three defensemen all just giving the puck away right before a goal. It can’t happen. Heck, just take one of those mistakes away and the Bruins might win this game, or at least get it to overtime.
“We were just not ready,” Bruins coach Marco Sturm said after the game. “That’s why we made mistakes, and that’s why it ended up, four times, pretty much on the empty net.”
The Bruins knew Tampa was going to be a desperate team, too. The Lightning, a team with Stanley Cup aspirations, had lost their first two games of the season, giving up five goals in each and getting badly outshot. And yet, Boston just wasn’t ready to match them.
“We knew that they’ve lost a couple games to start the year. We knew they were gonna come out hot,” Morgan Geekie said. “I mean, you can’t really do that [in] day games. You gotta figure out a way to get going, especially at home in divisional games. I wouldn’t pinpoint it on one thing. I think we got to our game towards the end of the second and into the third. But yeah, this league’s too good to fall behind that early.”
Geekie is right that the Bruins did eventually get going, though. They responded just 40 seconds after Tampa went up 3-0, with Viktor Arvidsson setting up Casey Mittelstadt for Mittelstadt’s second of the season.
After the Lightning made it 4-1, the Bruins answered less than two minutes later, with David Pastrnak springing Jordan Harris on a 2-on-1 that the Haverhill native finished himself for his first goal as a Bruin. And then Geekie pulled Boston within one with 8:25 left in the second, collecting the puck off a Pavel Zacha faceoff win and wiring it into the top corner for his second of the year.
The Bruins had numerous opportunities to tie the game. Mason Lohrei hit the post on a power play late in the second. Seconds later, Mittelstadt nearly set up Arvidsson for a backdoor tap-in, but the pass was a little too hot to handle. Arvidsson had another great chance in the slot early in the third, but was denied by Lightning goalie Jonas Johansson.
The Bruins got a power play early in the third as well, but couldn’t capitalize. The man advantage finished 0-for-5, and is now 0-for-9 in the last two games after an encouraging start to the season. They did land nine shots on net during Monday’s five opportunities, but there were also too many turnovers on zone entries that just killed momentum.
Boston fought to the end, with Pastrnak leading the way. Pastrnak turned into a goalie and made a brilliant save on Brandon Hagel with an empty net behind him with just over a minute to go. Then he broke up another potential empty-net goal by throwing a big open-ice hit on Nikita Kucherov.
TD Garden was ready to explode after those two plays if there was a tying goal to follow, but there wasn’t. The Bruins couldn’t capitalize with the extra attacker, nor on a brief 5-on-3 situation for the final eight seconds of the game. Elias Lindholm, who has been dominant in the faceoff circle so far this season (70.7%), unfortunately lost that last crucial draw to Cirelli.
The Bruins can and should pull some positives out of the comeback bid. They can and should feel pretty good about their 3-1-0 start to the season.
“The character of this group has been on display,” Geekie said. “I think you see it up and down the lineup. Kind of what we’ve been preaching all camp and all to start the year: we’re never out of games. We’ve got the skill to stay in, and you just saw it. We got down early. We didn’t start well at all, our line especially. And then to see us battle back and almost close it there at the very end, it’s tough to swallow, but we grew a lot today, and we’ll just take it into the road trip.”
That road trip won’t be an easy one. The Bruins were set to fly to Las Vegas right after Monday’s game. They’ll have a couple days of team bonding time in Sin City before playing the Golden Knights on Thursday. Then it’s a weekend back-to-back in Colorado and Utah on Saturday and Sunday before flying home to face the two-time defending Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers and old friend Brad Marchand next Tuesday.
So yes, these upstart Bruins are about to be put to the test, just like they were against Tampa on Monday. They should feel like they can compete with these teams, but only if they avoid the unforced errors they made in the first half of Monday’s loss.