TAMPA — Once you get past the crazy entertainment value of the Bruins’ 6-5 shootout loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning – the goalie fight, the questionable officiating, the cool spectacle of 65,000 engrossed in a hockey game – it all boiled down to two recurring themes for the B’s season.
The first is that they left another point on the table, one that could be useful come April. The second is that they have their habit of taking a ridiculous amount of penalties to blame for it.
It all unraveled for them in the second period as they had what seemed like a comfortable 5-1 lead over the Atlantic Division-leading Lightning. First Charlie McAvoy took a roughing penalty at 9:07 of the second, the first of seven straight power plays the Lightning were granted.
Most all of them were penalties. The beef the B’s had was that the Bolts were not dealt with as harshly by the officials. The lack of a matching roughing penalty when Jake Guentzel hit Mark Kastelic after Kastelic roughed Oliver Bjorkstrand as well as a missed trip perpetrated on McAvoy while the B’s were killing a 5-on-3 just before Sean Kuraly was called for closing his hand on the puck were just a couple of head-scratchers.
But now the B’s have to find a way to park it and finish strongly Wednesday in Sunrise, Fla., when they play the Florida Panthers in the final game before the Olympic break.
While Marco Sturm didn’t sugarcoat his team’s lack of discipline and composure, he did his best to strike a positive note about his team that is now 11-2-2 since the start of the new year.
Morgan Geekie of the Boston Bruins is congratulated by his teammates after scoring a goal against the Tampa Bay Lightning during the second period of the 2026 NHL Stadium Series at Raymond James Stadium on February 01, 2026 in Tampa, Florida. (Photo by Mike Carlson/Getty Images)
“That’s the good thing about those kind of games, especially when you lose those kinds of games. You should learn from it. Sometimes you have to go through those failures. And for me, today was one. Again, it just shows me that we’re not there yet,” said Sturm. “We’ve got to learn from it and we’ve got to move on. Again, we were playing without our top two centermen (Elias Lindholm and Pavel Zacha) and the way our young kids played was very impressive and overall the way the team played was impressive. We did a lot of good things. Don’t get me wrong. We did a lot of good things. It was just unfortunate. But we will take that point and we are very happy with how we are as a team right now. We’ve got one more game before the break and we’re going to do everything we can to get two points.”
But the officiating was, shall we say, interesting. It started very early in the game when Guentzel was called for high-sticking McAvoy even though it was an obvious follow-through by Guentzel, which is allowed. Instead of huddling up and getting the call correct, they sent Guentzel to the box. To make it right, they then quickly manufactured a tripping call on Viktor Arvidsson to even things up.
Then there was a bizarre situation in overtime. After Pastrnak tapped JJ Moser on a backcheck – sometimes it’s called, sometimes it isn’t – referee Jon McIsaac raised his arm in the air. But even after the Bruins gained control of the puck, he didn’t blow the play dead. As the B’s transported the puck all the way up ice and there was no whistle, Jeremy Swayman understandably assumed that the call was going against Tampa and headed for the bench for an extra attacker. Pastrnak then beat Andrei Vasilevskiy for what he thought was the game-winning goal.
Instead, he was sent to the penalty box.
“It was a joke,” said a flabbergasted Pastrnak.
The play left all the Bruins perplexed. And fuming.
“I think that made us more mad than the (other) calls,” said Morgan Geekie, who scored his 31st and 32nd goals in the loss. “The fact that Sway was out of the net and we carried it all the way down the ice and scored without anyone blowing the whistle. …He obviously saw something that none of us did but he might have been watching two ice sheets. I don’t know.”
While that was a strange moment, the fact of the matter was that the B’s had already self-sabotaged what should have been a signature victory. The B’s have now moved back into the league-lead for minor penalties with 238.
“We could complain all day and night about the calls that were made. But at the end of the day, there wasn’t too many of them that weren’t penalties,” said Geekie. “It’s just unfortunate that we kept putting ourselves in the box, knowing what they have on the other side when it comes to special teams. We just have to look ourselves in the mirror. It’s been an issue all year, so it’s not like it’s a one-off thing.”
Jeremy Swayman of the Boston Bruins and Andrei Vasilevskiy of the Tampa Bay Lightning fight during the second period of the 2026 NHL Stadium Series at Raymond James Stadium on February 01, 2026 in Tampa, Florida. (Photo by Mike Carlson/Getty Images)
But as bitterly disappointing as the result was, even the B’s players had to marvel at how the whole night went, from the bells and whistles of the outdoor atmosphere that Tampa and the NHL did right to the Swayman-Vasilevskiy goalie fight that had everyone giddy in the moment.
“It was great. I’ll remember that forever, for sure,” said Geekie. “It’s a great thing that the NHL does to allow us to do this. That on top of everything, it’s not the result we wanted but it’s something I’ll never forget and I’m sure it’s the same for everyone in here. You never know when your last one is going to be, so you just try to soak it all in and take what you can.”
The B’s made a couple of roster moves on Monday, placing Elias Lindholm on injured reserve, retroactive to Jan. 27, and recalling defenseman Jordan Harris from his LTI conditioning loan from the Providence Bruins. Harris has not played in the NHL since suffering a broken ankle on Oct. 21. In four games with Providence, Harris had a goal and two assists.
There will be a trade freeze for the Olympic break starting on Wednesday at 3 p.m. running through Feb. 22 at 11:59 pm. The trade deadline is March 6.