Thursday night at TD Garden was a special one for the Boston boys… just not the ones wearing Bruins uniforms.
How concerning is Bruins' losing streak?
The Bruins lost for the fourth time in five games since the All-Star break, falling to the Kraken 4-1. They were done in primarily by Seattle’s pair of Massachusetts natives, as North Andover’s Joey Daccord stopped 36 of the 37 shots he faced in net while Hingham’s Matty Beniers recorded a goal and two assists.
Thanks to those two, Thursday turned into one of the most frustrating nights of the season for the Bruins. On the surface, the 4-1 final makes this look like another lifeless showing along the lines of their 4-1 loss to Calgary last week or their 3-0 loss to Washington on Saturday.
In this case, however, the final score does not accurately tell the story of the game. This wasn’t like those losses. The Bruins played well and straight-up dominated long stretches of the game. Their effort was there. They started on time. They played fast and physical.
The Bruins outshot the Kraken 37-26 and out-attempted them 74-50. According to Natural Stat Trick, high-danger chances were 16-8 in favor of Boston, and expected goals were 4.18 for the Bruins vs. 2.50 for the Kraken.
The Bruins’ expected goals-for percentage of 62.6% was their ninth-best mark of the season. It’s the only one of their top 12 performances that they haven’t won. The takeaway there: When you play the way the Bruins did Thursday, you’re going to win the vast majority of the time.
Sometimes you just run into a hot goalie, and that’s exactly what Daccord has been for two months now. The former North Andover High and Cushing Academy star has a .938 save percentage since Dec. 12, which is second in the NHL over that time behind only Vezina Trophy favorite Connor Hellebuyck. An older rookie at 27, Daccord was making his first career start at TD Garden. His 3.18 goals saved above expected on Thursday made this his best performance of the season statistically.
“He definitely came up big for them,” David Pastrnak said of Daccord. “…We had plenty of opportunities to score, and we either didn’t capitalize or he was there.”
On the other side of things, some bad luck and a couple costly mistakes doomed the Bruins. Their penalty kill allowed too easy of an entry on Seattle’s first goal, with Jordan Eberle flying right past Hampus Lindholm and Trent Frederic. Eberle wound up 1-on-1 with Jeremy Swayman, who stopped the first shot but lost track of the rebound.
On the Kraken’s second goal, Brandon Carlo caught an edge and fell down at the offensive blue line, springing a 3-on-1 the other way. Beniers took a pass from Eeli Tolvanen and then sent it right back to Tolvanen for the finish.
On the third, Parker Wotherspoon fired an ill-advised shot right into Alex Wennberg, who then sprung Beniers on another odd-man rush. This time, Beniers took the shot himself and rifled it over Swayman’s blocker.
“The one area that we continue to need to improve on that we believe is a big part of our process is winning the odd-man rush battle,” Bruins coach Jim Montgomery said. “We’re not winning that consistently. But there’s a process we believe in, and unlike the Calgary and the Washington game where we didn’t like the way we played, the majority of the last two games we like the way we played. We don’t like the result.”
As Montgomery referenced, this is now two games in a row like this. The Bruins also controlled play and had the better chances Tuesday against the Tampa Bay Lightning. They at least got a point out of that one, but wound up losing in a shootout.
It can be tempting to lump all four of these recent losses together, but Montgomery is right to differentiate these last two from the Flames and Capitals games. Those two were embarrassing no-shows. These two have been like-the-process, hate-the-result games, which is why Montgomery sounded much more positive Thursday night compared to his dejected tone Saturday.
“For me, it’s easy to stay positive when we’re playing well,” Montgomery said. “The last two games, the results are not what we want, but we’re playing the right way. You keep playing the right way, you believe in a process, things are going to turn around. It just usually does.”
The Bruins will now hope that turnaround comes Saturday, when they host the Los Angeles Kings for a matinee 12:30 p.m. start.
For more Bruins talk, be sure to tune in to Sunday Skate with Andrew Raycroft, Scott McLaughlin and Bridgette Proulx, starting this Sunday 9-11 a.m. on WEEI 93.7 FM, WEEI.com, and the Audacy app.