It should have been a momentum swing. With the Boston Bruins trailing the Winnipeg Jets by one and starting the third period on the penalty kill, Elias Lindholm and Pavel Zacha immediately forced an offensive-zone faceoff and then scored shorthanded, with Zacha winning the faceoff right to Lindholm.
As has too often been the case for these Bruins, though, they failed to build any momentum, and actually completely unraveled in the minutes to follow en route to another blowout loss, this one by a final score of 6-2.
Instead of the penalty kill remaining locked in to kill off the rest of Brad Marchand’s interference penalty, they broke down on a zone entry just 24 seconds later, handing Mark Scheifele, the NHL’s second-leading goal-scorer, a free skate right down the slot.
Less than a minute later, Mason Lohrei committed a cardinal sin, carrying the puck right in front of his own net under pressure. Nikolaj Ehlers made him pay for the poor decision, poking the puck off Lohrei’s stick and into an empty Boston net, as Joonas Korpisalo was still stuck on the other side of the crease trying to figure out what was happening.
Five minutes after that, Lohrei and Charlie McAvoy couldn’t clean up the front of the net, allowing Wakefield, Rhode Island native Parker Ford to swoop in and score his first NHL goal in his first NHL game. At least someone in the TD Garden crowd had something to celebrate.
In a matter of minutes, yet another game had completely gotten away from the Bruins, just like that 8-1 loss when they last played Winnipeg in December, or the 7-2 loss in Buffalo on Tuesday, or the 5-1 loss in New Jersey last week. Some “Fire Sweeney” chants broke out in the Garden, just like they did during a 4-0 loss to Edmonton earlier this month.
The in-game collapses mirror the Bruins’ season as a whole. Too often, potential momentum shifts are followed by implosions.
Two big wins over Ottawa and Colorado this past Thursday and Saturday? It could have been the start of a nice run leading up to the 4 Nations Face-Off break in mid-February. Instead, the Bruins have been outscored 13-4 since then. Those back-to-back wins over division rivals Florida and Tampa Bay a couple weeks ago? The Bruins followed them up by blowing a two-goal third-period lead in a loss to the Senators.
No one seems to be able to explain why this keeps happening.
“You have to be mentally strong, right?” interim head coach Joe Sacco said. “I mean, there's stuff that happens during the course of the game. It's not always going to go your way. You don't have momentum... the momentum shifts during the course of the game are going to happen. … We just have to find a way as a group to really be mentally strong.”
“We’re just making mistakes, and it seems like every mistake we make, it’s costing us,” Marchand said. “So, we just have to tighten up a little bit.”
“I don't know,” McAvoy said. “It's just been like that this year. And I feel like if we knew exactly what was wrong, we would have stopped it by now. We just have a way of letting it compound. Maybe that's… I don’t even know. I don't have the answer for it right now.”
The Bruins are running out of time to find an answer. The 4 Nations break is now just four games away, and the expectation around the league is that trade talks will pick up at that time. After the break, the Bruins will have just seven games before the actual trade deadline on March 7.
That’s not much time to change any opinions about what this team is and can be. Team president Cam Neely already said a “retool” will be considered if things don’t improve. As the goals against and bad losses pile up, that path seems more and more likely.
Marchand insists he and his teammates still believe they can right the ship.
“Yeah, we're right there,” he said. “We just have to string a few wins together. By no means are we out of it, or do we feel like we're out of it. We're obviously in a dog fight, which is… we're playing for something, and that's what we all want. So yeah, we obviously still believe, and we're right there. Just gotta tighten up a little bit and we’ll be OK.”
The team’s actions aren’t backing up the words, though. And if that doesn’t change, it will soon be time for the front office’s actions to back up Neely’s words.