BOSTON —After appearing to steady their wobbly ship last week, the Bruins took a big step back on Monday.
Boston was flat early and out of synch throughout and fell to the St. Louis Blues, 5-1, at TD Garden.
The Bruins were both lousy and unlucky in the first period and found themselves down 2-0. They hurt their cause with an unusual number of missed passes and overskated pucks.
The Blues weren’t good either in the opening frame, but they were opportunistic. St. Louis took a 1-0 lead off a strange bounce. Torey Krug was just trying to dump the puck into the corner, but it caromed off referee Francois St. Laurent’s skate right out to the slot where Kasperi Kapanen was waiting to snap it past Jeremy Swayman to make it 1-0.
After both teams were ineffective on 5-on-4 power plays the Blues stretched their lead to 2-0 on a Robert Thomas goal with a two-man advantage.
Intermission didn’t fix the Bruins. Dorchester’s Kevin Hayes made his homecoming a happy one as he made it 3-0, 4:31 into the second.
Replay cost the Bruins a goal, a power play and perhaps momentum. Justin Brazeau appeared to have cut Boston’s deficit to 3-1 with 8:49 left in the second period. But the Blues challenged that the Bruins were offside before the goal was scored.
Replay appeared to show that while Brazeau had entered the zone early, Torey Krug had bumped the puck into the zone making offsides impossible, but the officials negated the goal ruling there hadn’t been possession.
Not long after Brandon Saad beat Swayman to make it 4-0 ending any suspense.
David Pastrnak ended Joel Hofer’s shutout, 1:12 into the third.
From there, the Bruins appeared to find some urgency, but not enough accuracy. Montgomery got uber-aggressive and pulled Swayman with just under nine minutes left, but Alexey Toropchenko scored an empty net goal with 8:33 left.
Here are four takeaways from the Bruins’ rough Monday:
Bruins are playing to level of competition — Since the All-Star break, the Bruins have played 18 games and have largely played up to or down to the level of their competition. In the 12 against teams who started Monday in playoff contention, they are 6-1-4. Against teams who are out of the playoff race, they are 1-4-2 with the only win coming Saturday against Pittsburgh.
The Bruins missed a chance to get back into first place — With Florida idle on Monday, the Bruins missed a chance to jump at least temporarily into first place as they trailed the Panthers by just a point coming in. But the loss left Boston still back by a point while Florida has two games in hand.
No Peeke yet — While Andrew Peeke skated with his teammates for the first time on Monday at morning skate, he wasn’t in the lineup. Montgomery said the six defensemen, who had played in Saturday’s win over Pittsburgh had earned the right to keep playing.
After Monday’s struggles however, Peeke is likely to get a shot when the Bruins play at Montreal on Thursday.
Jeremy Swayman wants to fight somebody — On numerous occasions, Swayman has shown a willingness to fight if someone would take him up on it. Most recently with his teammates all paired up against Maple Leafs in the offensive end, he skated up seemingly ready to take on Toronto goalie Joseph Woll. But it didn’t happen.
On Monday when Swayman was getting set to skate to the bench on a delayed penalty, Nathan Walker blocked his path. Swayman shoved him hard twice, but Walker didn’t engage.
Leave a Reply