Ottawa has not been a kind place to the Boston Bruins this year. 

When they visited the Ottawa Senators on Oct. 27, the Bruins suffered an embarrassing 7-2 loss. But what at first seemed like rock bottom turned out to be turned out to be a launching point for Boston, sparking a seven-game winning streak. 

As the Bruins returned to Canadian Tire Centre on Thursday, they saw that winning streak come to an end and left at least a point on the table, falling 5-3 after battling back from a two-goal deficit in the third period.

“We kind of shot ourselves in the foot, it felt like,” Morgan Geekie said to reporters in Ottawa. “It’s just happened a couple too many times this year to be okay with it. I’m super proud of the way we battled back in the third. We didn’t start very well, but all game we got better and better. It’s always tough to see those ones slip away.”

A slow start in the first period had the Bruins playing from behind from the very beginning. 

The Senators opened the scoring 1:28 following the opening puck, capitalizing on a power play opportunity via a Claude Giroux a one-timer from the left face-off circle.

Boston could barely break the puck out of its own zone under the pressure of a heavy Ottawa forecheck. The Bruins held firm defensively for about as long as they could, but cracked with 57 seconds left until the intermission when Dylan Cozens made it 2-0 Sens.

 “Guys were– I’m not saying not ready–but we came out a little slow out of the gate,” said Bruins head coach Marco Sturm. “Knowing them, how they are in this building, we should’ve learned our lesson last time. We didn’t at the start, but we battled back.” 

The Bruins came out with much more energy and pace in the second period. Mark Kastelic and Tanner Jeannot ran over just about every and any Senator in sight almost soon as the two teams emerged from the locker rooms.

“For us, that’s kind of our bread and butter,” Kastelic said. “I don’t think either of us were happy with our first period, that’s for sure. When things aren’t going your way, the things you can control are just being physical and hard, and the rest will come from that, and that’s what we tried to do.” 

The Bruins got on the board at 11:49 when Morgan Geekie parked himself directly in front of Senators goalie Leevi Merilainen and chipped in a slap pass from David Pastrnak for his team-leading 12th goal of the season.

Sensing the momentum shifting in Boston’s favor, Kurtis MacDermid tried to take some back for Ottawa by squaring off with Jeannot in a tilt between two of the league’s fiercest fighters. But that didn’t do much to slow down the Bruins, who had a 10-4 advantage in shots on goal during the period.

What did, however, even if only for a moment, was Shane Pinto catching the Bruins in the midst of a bad line change at 1:06 of the third period to move the score to 3-1 Senators.

Pastrnak seemed to cut the deficit down to one on the power play, but a coach’s challenge by Ottawa revealed that Boston was offside as it entered the zone. No matter, though, Pastrnak ended up finding the back of the net again anyway at 3:49, bringing the score to 3-2 with his 11th goal of the season, tying him with Rick Middleton for the fifth-most goals in Bruins franchise history (402).

Kastelic evened the score at 5:15 with his fourth goal of the year, only for Time Stützle to put the Senators ahead for good at 14:17. 

Joonas Korpisalo had 17 saves on 21 shots for the Bruins. He wasn’t on the ice to stop Stützle’s empty-net goal with 17.2 seconds left to play.

“It is disappointing because the guys came back,” said Sturm. “That’s exactly what we wanted, even though they scored early on in the third. We played a pretty solid game. Maybe not in the first period, but other than that it was fine. Unfortunately, there were individual or fixable mistakes that cost us the game tonight.” 

The fortunate news for the Bruins is they won’t have to travel to Ottawa again this regular season, and only have one game remaining against the Senators on Dec. 21 at TD Garden. 

The Bruins will visit the Montreal Canadiens on Saturday night.  

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