{"id":495161,"date":"2026-03-09T19:05:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T19:05:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/495161\/"},"modified":"2026-03-09T19:05:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T19:05:13","slug":"3-stars-pavel-zacha-cant-save-bruins-from-latest-collapse-98-5-the-sports-hub","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/495161\/","title":{"rendered":"3 Stars: Pavel Zacha can’t save Bruins from latest collapse – 98.5 The Sports Hub"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Bruins turned two points in one Sunday afternoon in Pittsburgh. <\/p>\n

Up 3-0, the Bruins took their foot completely off the gas and allowed the Penguins to claw back into things to a 3-3 tie in the third period. <\/p>\n

But as bad as that was, the Bruins even jumped back out to a 4-3 lead before regulation… only to let it slip once again and then fall by a 5-4 overtime final to the Penguins. It was about as bad a loss as you could have this time of year. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

For the Penguins, this marked the first time that a Pittsburgh team overcame a three-goal deficit without Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin since Feb. 2001. <\/p>\n

Here’s a look at the 985TheSportsHub.com 3 Stars of the game…<\/p>\n

3rd Star: Egor Chinakhov\"\"<\/p>\n

Mar 8, 2026; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA; Penguins right wing Egor Chinakhov (59) celebrates his power play goal against the Bruins at PPG Paints Arena. (Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images)<\/p>\n

After their power play was downright frustrated by Boston’s penalty kill last week, the Penguins made sure to capitalize on an extended 5-on-3 in the second period. And it was that goal, scored by the Penguins’ Egor Chinakhov, that really got things going for the club in their comeback. <\/p>\n

In addition to the goal, Chinakhov also pestered the absolute hell out of Bruins defenseman Charlie McAvoy to force the turnover that led to Tommy Novak’s game-winning overtime goal just one shift into the fourth period. <\/p>\n

2nd Star: Anthony Mantha\"\"<\/p>\n

Mar 8, 2026; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA; Penguins right wing Anthony Mantha (39) moves the puck against Boston Bruins center Fraser Minten (93) at PPG Paints Arena. (Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images)<\/p>\n

The Pens’ Anthony Mantha made his presence felt in this one in a major way. <\/p>\n

Deployed for 15:14 by the day’s time, Mantha had two separate game-tying goals in the third period of this one, and scored both of them in an under five-minute span in the middle of the period. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

1st Star: Pavel Zacha\"\"<\/p>\n

Mar 8, 2026; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA; Bruins center Pavel Zacha (18) reacts after scoring his third goal of the game against the Penguins at PPG Paints Arena. (Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images)<\/p>\n

The Bruins shouldn’t waste a hat trick anybody, to be honest. But the Bruins should never, ever waste a hat trick from Pavel Zacha. If only because getting him to shoot the puck like he did in Sunday’s loss is a definite rarity. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

In what was his second hat trick of the season (and the second of his career), Zacha was straight-up lethal with the puck on his stick, and is now up to 19 goals on the season. Obviously, it’s not fair to expect Zacha to put up a hat trick every other month, but one thing that’s definitely helped him this season has been landing his shot on goal at a higher clip than in previous seasons. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Bruins turned two points in one Sunday afternoon in Pittsburgh. Up 3-0, the Bruins took their foot…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":495162,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5113],"tags":[95,5,4,7610,118,1469,100,5216],"class_list":{"0":"post-495161","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh-penguins","8":"tag-boston-bruins","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-pavel-zacha","12":"tag-penguins","13":"tag-pittsburgh","14":"tag-pittsburgh-penguins","15":"tag-pittsburghpenguins"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116200783243921945","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=495161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495161\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/495162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=495161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=495161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=495161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}