BOSTON – Once again the Bruins fell short defensively, and this time it hurt them against an offensively dangerous opponent.
A handful of defensive breakdowns and shoddy special teams play led to four goals allowed and a 4-1 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning at TD Garden, and showed just how much truly separates Boston and Tampa Bay right now. While many will probably remember Adam McQuaid falling down on his backside while opening up a 2-on-none breakaway for Alex Killorn and Ryan Callahan in the first period, that was forgivable for being such an aberrational play.
The other breakdowns were not: including J.T. Brown hitting a post on a breakaway in the second period, and Steven Stamkos drawing a penalty shot call in the second period for the backbreaking fourth goal after getting behind the Boston defense. With just 20 games remaining in the season and most hockey teams rounding into playoff form, the Bruins are still making simple defensive mistakes and suffering gaffes at the worst possible moments.
“Every time you lose, it’s no good. Even though we were maybe winning the last couple of games, we still weren’t playing the way we want to play. You know, you want to go into playoffs feeling good about your team,” said David Krejci. “I felt like we were heading in the right direction before this game – it was never perfect, but we were going in the right direction.
“I felt like tonight was kind of a step back, so we have to work on some stuff, especially those little details. In this league, it’s a big thing. [They’re] just little things, but they go a long way. I felt like we gave them a couple goals and the game could have been different. We have to play as a team, we have to trust the system and we didn’t do it tonight.”
Perhaps the Bruins had been able to sneak by with wins in the last couple of games despite allowing 40 plus shots on goal in each of the victories, and instead simply relying on Tuukka Rask stopping 80-of-82 shots he faced in a red-hot stretch. All of that came crashing down with the breakaways allowed, and a pair of power play goals for Tampa given up in a grand total of 38 seconds by Boston’s struggling penalty kill unit.
That kind of defense has led the Bruins to 23rd in goals allowed in the NHL this season, and really portends a quick trip in the postseason if the B’s don’t find a way to resolve those issues.
“We had a lot of breakdowns. We had a lot of posts and it would’ve been a different score, you know. I think we’ve been giving up a lot of shots,” said Adam McQuaid. “Maybe not, you know, the breakaways and stuff like that. But we’ve been giving up a lot of shots in previous games, and we haven’t really gotten burned on it. Tonight we did, and it’s an area we need to clean up.”
So now the Bruins fall two points behind in the Atlantic Division standings to a Tampa Bay club that’s won six games in a row, and now it doesn’t much feel like the Black and Gold will have another chance of catching them down the stretch.