NEW YORK Similar to their defeat against Detroit the previous day, the Boston Bruins started slowly and gave up two goals to the Rangers in the first half, falling down 2-0. Boston didn’t have a shot on goal until 12:37 into the first stanza.
The Bruins fired first, and for a moment they were on fire. Boston took control of the following several minutes, scoring twice in a span of 24 seconds to tie the game. Charlie Coyle, standing net front, converted a solid feed from Trent Frederic to reduce the lead in half. After a strong shift by the Coyle line, the fourth line scored the temporary equalizer through Morgan Geekie.
Brad Marchand, the Boston captain, stated, “We responded well.” “Normally, we’re not too bad at it. We have shot ourselves in the foot a little bit in the last two games when we have gotten back into it. We must not back down when a player makes a huge play or scores a big goal.
However, in the latter part of the first, the Bruins slept off during a power play opportunity. For his second goal of the first period, a quick Chris Kreider slipped past Charlie McAvoy and buried the breakaway effort.
The Bruins didn’t let Kreider’s total phase them; instead, they immediately resumed their efforts to begin the second. After some extra time for power play, David Pastrnak scored his 13th goal of the year against Jonathan Quick with just 26 seconds remaining in the middle period. The Bruins responded to Pastrnak’s score with a powerful opening frame. However, Boston squandered all of its momentum in the latter part of the second period, as the Rangers scored twice in the final 3:23 of the period to take back a two-goal lead.
In the third quarter, the Rangers kept piling goals on Boston’s defense as the Bruins’ hopes of a comeback were being crushed by mistakes. Early in the third, Coyle scored his second goal of the game, but it was far from sufficient to offset Boston’s defensive flaws.
A disappointing week for the Bruins concluded with a 7-4 loss, with the exception of their 3-1 victory over the Panthers on Wednesday. Marchand remarked, “A little too loose in the D-zone, not backchecking, stuff like that.” “We don’t succeed when we turn pucks over in bad areas.”
Here are the things we discovered after the Bruins suffered their first consecutive regulation losses of the year.Boston’s recent defensive zone slippage began
One of Boston’s worst defensive games of the Jim Montgomery era might have occurred on Saturday.
After the Rangers outscored Linus Ullmark by seven goals and had several more opportunities, the Bruins’ recent defensive collapse reached a new low. Though they again struggled in that area on Saturday, Boston’s problems extended beyond their defense of the rush.
According to Montgomery, “I think gaps were a problem and F3 wasn’t on the strong side.” “I felt like they killed a bunch of plays against us. That is our inability to prevail in conflicts and obtain covert assistance.Boston’s defense gave up entirely too many breakaways, failed to pick up sticks in front of the net, and left the middle of the ice open against a Rangers team playing their second game of a back-to-back. Ullmark gave up seven goals, but none of them were mainly his fault.
