The Bruins had a chance to make this five-game road trip a winning one, which would have been no small feat given that they started the trip with two losses. Instead, Boston threw away what should have been a winnable game, falling to the Seattle Kraken, 7-4, Tuesday night.
The Kraken have one of the worst offenses in the NHL, and were playing without three of their top eight scorers. They were on the second night of a back-to-back, while the Bruins were well-rested after two days off. The Bruins needed to force the Kraken to create chances. Instead, they handed those chances right to Seattle, something that has happened too often recently.
The first of those gifts came midway through the first period. Just nine seconds after Nikita Zadorov took an interference penalty, Jeremy Swayman foolishly whacked Jordan Eberle in the back of the leg, giving the Kraken a 5-on-3 for 1:51. It took Seattle just 10 seconds to score, with Eberle burying a rebound.
David Pastrnak tied the game before the end of the first, but then the Bruins made things too easy for the Kraken again early in the second. Jonathan Aspirot misjudged a bouncing puck at the offensive blue line and got caught flat-footed, leading to an odd-man rush for Seattle. The Kraken actually did their best to botch that rush and had to settle for a bad-angle one-timer from Berkly Catton… which somehow beat Swayman. On replay, it actually looked like Catton’s shot would have gone wide if Swayman hadn’t deflected it in himself.
Pastrnak again tied the game, and the Bruins again couldn’t add to it. They had chances in the second, landing 17 shots on goal in the frame, but a disastrous end to the period put them in a hole they could never quite climb out of.
With 1:37 left in the second, Mason Lohrei had the puck on his stick behind his own net, but wasn’t strong enough or decisive enough with it. Tye Kartye swooped in to steal it and set up Ben Meyers in front for the go-ahead goal. Just 16 seconds after that, Alex Steeves took an offensive-zone slashing penalty. The Bruins nearly survived until the intermission, but Jared McCann beat the buzzer on a one-timer to make it 4-2.
It’s not just that the Bruins are taking too many penalties (they’ve taken the most in the NHL, if you haven’t heard); it’s also when they’re taking them. When they’re already on the kill, for instance. Or right after allowing a goal, which only makes it easier for the opponent to build momentum.
The Kraken pushed the lead to 6-2 in the third period before goals from Lohrei and Viktor Arvidsson gave the Bruins at least a tiny sliver of hope. They never got within a goal, though, and then Kaapo Kakko slammed the door shut with an empty-netter.
The Bruins have tried to make being hard to play against part of their identity this season. They have succeeded in stretches. But over the past month, they have fallen short of that standard too many times, including Tuesday night. They made this one easy for the Kraken, a sign of immaturity in the eyes of coach Marco Sturm.
"We were very immature, I can tell you that," Sturm told NESN. "That's what happened today. They didn't do anything. They went back in their zone, they stopped, they went up and down the ice, and we made the mistakes. And of course, penalties hurt us again, all of them. And now all of a sudden, you give up two points here we definitely should have grabbed today, and that's the most frustrating and disappointing part of it."
Charlie McAvoy just about echoed Patriots coach Mike Vrabel's "no naps" mantra, saying the Bruins can't have the kinds of mental lapses they had Tuesday.
"Mentally, you can't sleep," McAvoy said. "...I mean, the second goal, we do it to ourselves on a turnover, right? And then comes back down the other way. The third one, it's just win a battle, right? It's not enough to be in the right spots, but you gotta do your job when you're there."
The Bruins have now lost by three or more goals five times in their last 11 games. This was the fourth time in the last month that they surrendered six or more goals.
If they continue to slide, end up out of the playoffs, and sell before the trade deadline again, they’ll look back on games and stretches like this with regret. Or, if they’re going to pull themselves out of this, it really needs to start immediately.