If the Bruins really want to make the playoffs, earning just one point on a night like Monday in Newark is not going to cut it.<\/p>\n
The Bruins coughed up a 2-0 first period lead to an also-ran New Jersey Devils and lost 4-3 in overtime.<\/p>\n
After Charlie McAvoy hit the post at one end, Paul Cotter scored his second of the game with six seconds to go in overtime. The rebound off the McAvoy shot bounced out to Dougie Hamilton. He shoveled it up to Jack Hughes (three assists) and he in turn relayed it to Cotter for the breakaway game-winning goal.<\/p>\n
The B\u2019s had a 2-0 lead going into the second period but it evaporated because of self-inflicted mistakes by a couple of their most reliable players.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s frustrating because we played such a good first period and the way we came out and played in the second, that to me was night and day,\u201d Marco Sturm told reporters in Jersey. \u201cWhen you play like that, that\u2019s what you get. All of a sudden you get in trouble. In the end, both teams had their chances, we hit the post. It could have gone either way. But that second period really bothered me.\u201d<\/p>\n
The B\u2019s did battle back to tie the game and had chances to win it in regulation but their power play let them down once again after getting several chances, including another short 5-on-3,\u00a0 in the third period. And so they had to settle for a point. With Detroit\u2019s win over Calgary, the B\u2019s dropped back to the second wild-card spot.<\/p>\n
The third period was wild.<\/p>\n
Cotter gave the Devils their first lead of the game at 2:50 of the third period. Max Tsyplakov made a nice move to get on the inside of Jonathan Aspirot and made a nifty backhand pass to Cotter for the goal past Joonas Korpisalo.<\/p>\n
But David Pastrnak responded with his second goal of the game on a pretty play off the rush. With Marat Khusnutdinov in the middle drive, Pastrnak toe-dragged the puck from the right wing into the slot and beat Jacob Markstrom on a backhander 1:42 after the Cotter goal.<\/p>\n
The B\u2019s then got a break. Mark Kastelic was initially handed a five-minute major for a high hit on Cotter when Cotter was engaged with Tanner Jeannot along the boards. Before it was sorted out, Johnathan Kovacevic went after Kastelic to avenge the hit and got an extra two minutes. Then after a review, Kastelic\u2019s major was downgraded to a two-minute minor, essentially wiping out what would have been Devils power play.<\/p>\n
Then the B\u2019s got their first power play of the game when Nico Hischier tripped Khusnutdinov in the Boston zone. After McAvoy and Connor Brown were given matching minors, Nick Bjugstad tripped Viktor Arvidsson, giving the Bruins a 23-second 5-on-3 at 12:22. As was the case Saturday in Washington when handed a similar situation, the B\u2019s did nothing with the advantages.<\/p>\n
Aspirot took a tripping penalty with 4:31 left in the third but the Devils wiped that out when Dawson Mercer committed an offensive zone interference penalty with 47 seconds left on Aspirot\u2019s penalty. But again, they could not capitalize and the PP fell to 4-for-35 since the Olympic break. And for the second time in as many games, the game went to an extra session.<\/p>\n
Two points would have been nice, maybe imperative, considering the Bruins have to travel to Montreal to play the Canadiens on Tuesday. But they let a winnable game get away from them again.<\/p>\n
The B\u2019s played a good first period and were rewarded for it with a 2-0 lead.<\/p>\n
The first goal came at 4:02 off the stick of Pastrnak. Henri Jokiharju, inserted back into the lineup after seven straight healthy scratches, delivered a right-point shot that produced a big rebound off Markstrom. It hit Pastrnak in the chest and, all alone from the bottom of left circle, he made couple of dekes to entice Markstrom to open his pads and he slipped it through for his 25th goal. It is the ninth time in his career that he\u2019s hit the 25-goal mark.<\/p>\n
At 14:29, the B\u2019s pounced on a neutral zone turnover to double the lead. The Devils\u2019 Arseny Gritsyuk toe-picked and lost the puck to McAvoy, who quickly zipped it up to Arvidsson for a quick 2-on-1. Arvidsson dished it to Pavel Zacha for Zacha\u2019s 20th of the season. The helper extended McAvoy\u2019s point streak to seven games.<\/p>\n
Fraser Minten also had an opportunity to make it 3-0 when a fortuitous bounce found him in the slot and with Markstrom out of the net. But defenseman Jonas Seigenthaler slid to block what looked like a sure goal with his skate.<\/p>\n
Korpisalo got his first start since he and the Bruins blew a 3-0 lead and lost to the Pittsburgh Penguins in overtime on March 8 and he made a couple of good saves in the first period. Off a bad change by the B\u2019s, Timo Meier broke in alone but Korpisalo thwarted his first shot and just managed to get his pad down to smother Meier\u2019s follow-up. He also made a nice pad stop on a Hischier deflection.<\/p>\n
But nothing is ever easy for the B\u2019s on the road.<\/p>\n
The Devils got on the board just 32 seconds into the second period. The B\u2019s were caught flat-footed high in the Jersey zone and American Olympic hero Hughes stole the puck from Arvidsson. Hughes sent Connor Brown off on a breakaway and he buried it over Korpisalo\u2019s glove to make it 2-1.<\/p>\n
Another turnover at the Devil blue line, this time by McAvoy, led to the equalizer at 8:08. McAvoy tried an ill-advised turnaround pass that Hughes again stole. This time he turned it into a 3-on-2 that was finished off by Jesper Bratt, whose one-timer got through Korpisalo. It was a good-looking play, but Korpisalo was in position to make the stop but did not.<\/p>\n
Sturm said his message into the first period was about guarding against turnovers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s exactly what we talked about in between periods and we did it right away,\u201d said Sturm. \u201cAll of a sudden they score twice. Those are the frustrating moments. We have to handle it better, especially on the road.\u201d<\/p>\n
Said Pastrnak: \u201cThat\u2019s unacceptable. We talked about it before the second period so that\u2019s what hurts even more. We should be mature enough already to know it\u2019s coming. We did regroup in the third but at this point in the season, we can\u2019t let teams back in so easy.\u201d<\/p>\n
That gave the Devils all sorts of juice. The B\u2019s were forced to ice the puck several times out of desperation and then Pastrnak took the first penalty of the game, other than the first period Kastelic-Brenden Dillon fight. But the B\u2019s were able to kill it off and slink their way to the dressing room, grateful they were still in a tie game going into the third. They were outshot, 17-8 in the second.<\/p>\n
The game was still in their grasp but, with their playoffs lives hanging in the balance, they did not seize it when they had the chance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If the Bruins really want to make the playoffs, earning just one point on a night like Monday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":509253,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5109],"tags":[530,2178,201,5,576,151,5185,5184,4,7610],"class_list":{"0":"post-509252","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-jersey-devils","8":"tag-bruins","9":"tag-david-pastrnak","10":"tag-devils","11":"tag-hockey","12":"tag-new-jersey","13":"tag-new-jersey-devils","14":"tag-newjersey","15":"tag-newjerseydevils","16":"tag-nhl","17":"tag-pavel-zacha"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116249219768969747","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509252","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=509252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509252\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/509253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=509252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=509252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}