BOSTON — The preseason is the time for trial and error. The time for a team to experiment, tinker, and ultimately figure out what’s working and what isn’t before the games count for real.

In a 3-2 shootout loss to the Philadelphia Flyers at TD Garden on Monday night, the Boston Bruins learned both.

“There’s some new stuff out there, and that’s no secret,” Sean Kuraly said. “Some of these systems are new and are a big change to what was here before, and there’s a lot of new players. We will take a look at tonight and learn from it and keep getting better.”

Kuraly scored Boston’s first goal of the night.

As the Flyers led 1-0 in the second period, Kuraly drew the Bruins even, driving hard toward the net and chipping in a laser of a pass from David Pastrnak.

Allow him to reintroduce himself. pic.twitter.com/jWw9UDnZoX

— Boston Bruins (@NHLBruins) September 30, 2025

“If you’ve got half a brain, you should know he’s dangerous,” said Kuraly of Pastrnak. “It doesn’t take you or I to figure that one out.”

Pastrnak’s play making ability was never much of a question.

What was, though, was how goalie Jeremy Swayman would perform, now being a full participant in training camp.

For the most part, Boston’s No. 1 goalie was solid in his preseason debut, stopping 19 of the 21 shots he faced. As for the two he didn’t, they weren’t exactly off high-danger chances

Philadelphia grabbed the game’s first lead thanks to a miscue by Swayman. After he mishandled a puck behind his own net, Noah Cates buried a shot in the back of it soon thereafter.

The next one he surrendered wasn’t any prettier.

After Kuraly’s goal, the two teams appeared to be headed into the second intermission tied at 1-1. That was until Rodrigo Abols fired a wide-angle shot from the top of the right face-off circle that found its way underneath Swayman’s blocker to put the Flyers back in front with 23.9 seconds remaining in the period.

Morgan Geekie tied the score once again for the Bruins in the third period. Off an odd-man rush, he beat Flyers goalie Dan Vladar on an odd-man rush courtesy of an assist from Elias Lindholm for his second goal of the preseason.

Geeks goes off the glove 🧤 pic.twitter.com/Cb1rWCP0Tz

— Boston Bruins (@NHLBruins) September 30, 2025

However, Geekie’s goal only underscored what was already well-known before: that Boston’s top line will–for better or worse–carry the bulk of the offensive load this year.

That will be even more true if the Bruins continue their struggles on the power play from last season. Against the Flyers, they went scoreless in their two opportunities.

“I feel like we’re getting there,” Pastrnak said. “You can start with breakouts. I think we had good break breakouts, and spent some time in the O-zone. It was a good first step.”

Boston also failed to score in both overtime and the shootout, as Pastrnak, Casey Mittelstadt, and Pavel Zacha all came up empty. Bobby Brink scored the lone goal of the skills competition for the Flyers.

The Bruins are now 2-1-1 thus far in the preseason. They’ll continue experimenting on Thursday when they visit the Washington Capitals in another exhibition matchup.

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