After a dominant opening period against the Minnesota Wild, the Boston Bruins went back to their old ways in the second period, ultimately falling 3-2.
If hockey games lasted just 20 minutes, the Boston Bruins would have been the best team in hockey on Saturday. After losing four of their past five games, including the last three in a row, the Bruins were determined to start out strong and fast against the Minnesota Wild.
Boston put together a dominant first period to take a 1-0 lead, but hockey games are 60 minutes, and after Minnesota turned the game on its head in the second period and cruised through the third, they walked away with a 3-2 win.
“I think it’s just will and compete is what it comes down to,” Bruins captain Brad Marchand said. “Just seems like we’re losing a lot of battles we should be winning, and we’re not having that second effort.”
The Bruins emphasized a strong start after Friday’s 5-1 shellacking by the Winnipeg Jets, and that’s exactly what they brought. Trent Frederic and Morgan Geekie connected on a give-and-go to spring the latter for a breakaway at 1:46, but Wild goalie Marc-Andre Fleury made a springy glove save to keep Boston off the board.
However, it didn’t stay 0-0 for long, as Charlie McAvoy connected with David Pastrnak on the power play to give the Bruins a 1-0 lead at 2:37. Brad Marchand nearly punched home Jake DeBrusk’s centering pass just 51 seconds later but was caught up by Pat Maroon to draw a second power-play opportunity.
For the period, the Bruins had a 55.56 Corsi For Percentage at 5-on-5, out-chancing the Wild 7-6 while producing five high-danger chances to Minnesota’s two, according to Natural Stat Trick.
“We had good first 10, 15 minutes in the first period,” Pastrnak said. “We got on the power play, we get some looks, we get the goal. Then it seems like we get one unlucky break and then we can’t get out of it. And all of a sudden, it’s like everything is going the wrong way.”
Brad Marchand’s roughing penalty with 15 seconds left in the period allowed Minnesota to open the second on the power play, and while they didn’t score that time, it set the tone for the rest of the period.
“I felt the momentum shift probably about three minutes before that,” Bruins coach Jim Montgomery said. “You don’t like taking a penalty in the last minute; you give the other team fresh ice in the second [period], and I thought they built a lot of momentum off that.”
It was as if a completely different team took the ice after the first intermission, for both sides. The same issues that plagued Boston earlier in their losing streak crept back in, and Minnesota utilized the speed and skill of their top line to jump back into the game.
It took just 1:25 for Minnesota to take the lead. The Wild tied it with a Joel Eriksson Ek power-play goal that was inadvertently chipped in by Brandon Carlo, then Kirill Kaprizov scored his fourth goal in three games by finishing off a give-and-go with Alex Goligoski.
Minnesota outshot Boston 12-2 through the first 10 minutes of the second period, and over the whole period, out-chanced the Bruins 10-3 (5-0 high-danger) at 5-on-5.
“It’s a problem to prevent people from getting [to the high-danger areas] out of corners, and we’re not doing a good enough job of preventing people [from] getting in front of our goaltenders,” Montgomery said. “They’re getting a lot of low slot line, which are high-danger chances that we usually prevent, and we’re not preventing enough of them right now.”
Marcus Foligno extended Minnesota’s lead to 3-1 at 3:10 of the third, and while the Bruins started to work back into the game within the final 10 minutes, it wasn’t enough.
The Bruins now have a three-day Christmas break to regroup before taking on the Buffalo Sabres on Wednesday, but Santa Claus won’t be taking any of Boston's recent issues with him back to the North Pole.
“It’s a good time to be with the family, so you get away from it mentally,” Montgomery said. “But we gotta get back to playing the right way, and we’ll have to do that on the 27th.”