Oh.
1st period
Things didn’t start off well at all. Brandon Hagel ended up getting the first goal in the first 11 seconds of the game after beating his defender cleanly on body position, and put the puck directly in front of Swayman to put the Lightning up 1-0.
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Fortunately, the Bruins managed to take advantage of the fact that their enemies were a little offbeat, and Alex Steeves received a cross from Michael Eyssimont to equalize! 1-1 everyone.
Then Morgan Geekie scored a goal that was seemingly passed over by everyone, including the ESPN commentators. 2-1 Bruins!
Then Viktor Arvidsson decided he wanted to participate in this project and had his own information! 3-1 Bruins!
No more scores, and here we go for the 2nd period!
2nd period
Oh boy.
Let’s start with the positives. For starters, that Matthew Poitras kid is back! Let’s see what he has!
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Nice backhand, kid! 4-1 Bruins!
Then Morgan Geekie had a duel with David Pastrnak and hammered him to success 5-1 Bruins!
Soon after, many absurdities happened. There were mass melee, there was a goalie fight after Jeremy Swayman decided he had to take out Brandon Hagel…
…and there were penalties. Oh man, were there penalties.
These penalties were important for the Lightning. Very big.
First, Oliver Bjorkstrand collected a rebound following a scrum in front of the net…
…then Darren Raddysh launched a missile from the tip…
…And then Nick Paul, who seems to be a perennial Bruins haunt, scored a decisive goal. End the period with a Bruins lead 5-4.
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Third period
While there will be a lot of discussion about the second period and the validity of the penalties called, the sad reality is that the Bruins had plenty of opportunities, at even strength, during that period to respond, and unfortunately the team that met the moment was the Lightning, and Nikita Kucherov in particular. No penalties, no man disadvantages, just a good pass and a good shot. 5-5 everyone.
We move on to overtime.
Over time
Tampa got another power play in the middle of it all, but let’s be real, the Lightning made every shot.
This will come back to bite you.
Shooting
Jake Guentzel finally completed the steal by scoring on Jeremy Swayman in the Shootout.
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6-5, the Bruins lose the Stadium Series.
Game notes
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Your leader TOI was Charlie McAvoy, who recorded 30:19 tonight.
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It was a winnable game that the Boston Bruins were convinced to give away. The Bruins stood out thanks to some good hard work and unusual early ice control, which seemed to discourage the Lightning and apparently caused Vasilevskiy to have difficulty tracking the puck. Things were looking really, really good, and then the Lightning started getting some attention, and that attention turned into violence, which turned into a series of penalties that were either inexplicable to call or completely avoidable. No matter what you think of the Lightning, they’re still loaded with extremely talented players, and those talented players made the B’s 5-on-3 PK into mincemeat, giving them a chance to come back in this one, and despite all the hemming and hawing we’ve done and will continue to do about those penalties, the tying goal And the goal early in the match was even strength points made by attackers beating the backcheck in front of them fair and square and in extremely awkward moments. OT wasn’t much better, and while Swayman did what he could in the shootout, Jake Guentzel was just too much. Boston falls to 4-2-0 in outdoor games.
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The refereeing in this match was, to put it kindly, complete and total. Certainly, and given how unhappy we are right now, I think we can admit it a few some penalties given to Boston in the 2nd and 3rd periods were genuine, reckless and frankly stupid to take, others were just applied weirdly or called late or just plain missed. The Lightning went 3-for-8 tonight, while Boston went just 1-for-3 on the power play, and Tampa was only short-handed in the 1st period. That should say it all.
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I’ll stop there and call this game rigged or something. Boston made a difficult pivot to a more conservative defensive shell game after the nightmarish second period and allowed the Lightning to slowly find cracks in their defense; not really difficult to do given the talent on display. They may have been let back in after a major brawl, but the refs are just bad at their job, and the Lightning are great at playing bad refs. Sometimes it becomes extremely obvious, like tonight. Right now, the Bruins aren’t good enough to overcome this. The long term goal is to get to the point where you can. B
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Jeremy Swayman faced nearly 45 shots tonight; a large majority of which occurred in the second half of the second period. This is as much an indictment of the defense in front of him as it is the fact that he had a truncated version of that defense in front of him for most of the 2nd half. That 0.891 SV% doesn’t even begin to tell the whole story; he made some heroic saves to keep this team in a really frustrating and shaky game. He also fought Andrei Vasilevskiy tonight, which he surely enjoyed. Maybe if you want to fight with a goalie, you should have a few practice rounds in your pads at Warrior. Just to get the form.
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I had to watch the NHL on ASL broadcast and I highly recommend it; the ESPN broadcast was miserable as usual, and the ASL broadcast in comparison was just crowd noise, basic information, and only the occasional missed shot, but that was a feature of the main camera. I can’t vouch for the performance of the ASL commentators, but they both seemed pretty engaged in what was happening and frequently updated the viewer.
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Tonight the Bruins lost. They played on ice, got back up, lost it all thanks to bad penalties and even worse officiating, and still took a point away from the division leaders and are quickly coming to hide from Colorado in the race for the President’s Trophy. Last time, it was the Bs who came back and almost made it an overtime game. They now know that they can at least stay suspended, at least for a little while. Now they need to start thinking about whether or not they can survive a playoff series against this team; because if things stay as is, the Bruins will face the Lightning again in April; both in the regular season and in the playoffs. Lots of decisions to make; The pre-Olympic deadline is almost here, and the post-Olympic deadline isn’t that far away after that. Lots to consider here, and let’s hope Don Sweeney is willing to make the best decision for the long-term health of this team.
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Still only two points at the start of February. The game was dramatic and stupid, but you still got to get on the bus to Sunrise.
The Bruins will play their final game before the Olympic break on Wednesday, when they take on the Florida Panthers. This game drops the puck at 7 p.m. EST. This is a TNT/HBO game, so adjust your viewing accordingly.
We’ll see you there. Come on B’s.
