It can be difficult to assess the four-game road trip the Boston Bruins finished Monday night with a shootout loss to the Seattle Kraken.
The Bruins return to Boston after collecting five points on the trip and still have yet to lose a road game in regulation since the calendar flipped to the new year.
But the fashion in which many of those games played out, with Boston coughing up third-period leads, left Bruins head coach Jim Montgomery wanting more.
“I think our play for the majority of time was really good, but not having that killer instinct,” Montgomery told NESN’s Andy Brickley, as seen on the network’s postgame coverage. “I think this is a trip where we could’ve had seven out of eight (points) the way we played.”
The Bruins held a third-period advantage in three games on the trip and surrendered a game-tying goal each time. They walked away from two of those contests with losses.
It happened again against the Kraken, who skated around the Bruins to begin the third until they leveled the score 5:29 into the frame. Oliver Bjorkstrand then put Seattle ahead with just over five minutes remaining in regulation.
The third-period woes have haunted the Bruins this season as they are 25-1-8 when leading after two periods.
“I just know that we got to continue to develop, show video and make sure we’re playing with a little more killer instinct,” Montgomery said. “(Playing) aggressively to start the period and then understand game management and our outs on breakouts and coming out of the D-zone so we can spend more time in the O-zone.”
Bruins captain Brad Marchand viewed the trip much like Montgomery. There was some good, some bad and not exactly a satisfied feeling with how Boston played, especially at the most crucial times.
“We had a decent road trip. We should have done better. Could have done worse,” Marchand told reporters, as seen on NESN postgame coverage. “Definitely some areas we need to continue to improve upon. Can’t let games slip away from us. It happened a couple of times on this trip. So, it’s good to get five of eight, but we should have had more.”