Bruins '[expletive] embarrassed' after Game 4 disaster

It's one thing to lose a Game 4 on home ice and fall into a 3-1 series hole against a more talented team. It's another to completely no-show in a historically bad first period and get booed by your home fans all afternoon.

For the Boston Bruins, Sunday's 6-1 loss to the Buffalo Sabres was the latter. This wasn't just a loss. It was an indictment – the kind of performance that leaves you asking uncomfortable questions about this team, its leadership, and its future.

Chief among those questions: How does this even happen?

"This" being one of the worst first periods you will ever see in a Stanley Cup playoff game, one that saw the Bruins fall behind 4-0 with one uncompetitive play after another. They were trailing in shots 15-2 at one point, and ultimately got outshot 19-5 in the period. It was the first time in the 102-year history of this franchise that Boston trailed 4-0 in the first period of a playoff game.

It took the Sabres just 4:17 to open the scoring, thanks to a gift from the Bruins. Jonathan Aspirot mishandled a D-to-D pass from Charlie McAvoy, leading to a bit of a fire drill. Fraser Minten actually put out that fire, but then he turned the puck over himself with a soft giveaway up the boards. Seconds later, Peyton Krebs buried a shot past Jeremy Swayman off a feed from Alex Tuch.

Three minutes later, Josh Doan made it 2-0. With a Sabres power play winding down, Hampus Lindholm had a chance to make one final clear. Instead, he gave the puck away with a soft flip that never had a chance of getting out. Once again, it took Buffalo mere seconds to capitalize on the mistake, with Ryan McLeod setting up Doan right in front.

Disaster struck a third time just two minutes after that. Jordan Harris, inserted into the lineup in place of a struggling Mason Lohrei, likely played his way right back out of the lineup by mishandling the puck on an exit and then skating right into two Sabres as he tried to get it back. Zach Benson took the puck, drove to the net, and jammed it past Swayman.

The nightmare wasn't over yet. With 5:36 left in the first, Morgan Geekie turned the puck over in the defensive zone, the Bruins got caught scrambling, and no one picked up Bowen Byram as he walked into the left circle and fired a shot past Swayman.

If the scoreboard wasn't uncomfortable enough for the Bruins, they also had to hear what their fans inside TD Garden thought of it.

The booing at the end of the first period was about as loud as the building got Sunday. When David Pastrnak, the superstar who is on track to eventually have his number 88 hang in the rafters, turned the puck over late in the first, he was met with boos. He heard them again in the second period after missing a reverse hit on Rasmus Dahlin and easily losing a puck battle instead.

Swayman had to listen to "Sway-man, Sway-man" taunts in his own building, with the surprisingly large contingent of Buffalo fans in attendance relishing the moment. When Swayman finally exited the game in the third period after giving up goals five and six – a decision he seemingly made himself – he yelled something at his teammates as he left the ice.

Sturm did not have a problem with that.

"At least one guy [had some fire]," he noted.

Sturm had a lot of problems with the rest of his team, to the point that he was at a loss for words when asked if he could explain his team's effort Sunday.

"I can't," he said. "I really can't. I don't know. I really don't know. … If you're a Boston Bruin, playing at home, you should be very excited, I think, going into a playoff game. We didn't. So, I really can't answer that question right now."

When asked if he looks at his leadership group after a day like this, the answer was yes.

"Of course," Sturm said. "It starts with me. It starts with the leaders on the ice. Yeah, those are the guys. I can't expect the young guys to turn the ship and get us out of this. So, absolutely, those are the guys who – including me – need to be in charge."

Those leaders, to their credit, didn't hide postgame. David Pastrnak and Charlie McAvoy met with the media, took ownership of the loss, expressed their frustration and embarrassment (including with a couple F-bombs), and even pointed out that the series is not yet over.

"Waste of opportunity," Pastrnak said. "Unacceptable. We expect better from ourselves. We are better than that, and we can't show up like this."

"Man to man in here, if we're not [expletive] embarrassed with what just happened, then I don't know what to say," McAvoy said.

So, how do they try to "turn the ship," as Sturm put it?

"Show up back to work tomorrow, get better – as a team, as an individual," Pastrnak said. "Whatever it takes to get ready for the game in Buffalo. I think I speak for the whole group: we expect to be better as a team, as an individual, including me. So, go to Buffalo and bring the series back to Boston. It's not over."

"We're not out of this thing yet," McAvoy said. "We gotta remember that, and we gotta reset here quick."

The Bruins may very well just not be good enough to win this series. That raises questions general manager Don Sweeney will have to answer this offseason. But the Bruins are certainly better than the effort they put forth on Sunday. And that raises questions that only the players can answer – not through their words between now and Tuesday night in Buffalo, but through their actions on the ice.