Ouch.
Issue 1
Things didn’t start well at all. Brandon Hagel Finally, within the first 11 seconds of the game, he cleanly beat a defender in body position and put the puck right past Swayman to give the Lightning a 1-0 lead.
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Fortunately, the Bruins managed to take advantage of their foe being a bit unbalanced, and Alex Steeves gets a center pass from Michael Eyssimont to tie the game! 1-1 everyone.
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Then Morgan Geekie hit a goal that everyone seemed to agree on, including the ESPN commentators. 2-1 Bruins!
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Then Viktor Arvidsson decided to get involved and got his own tip! 3-1 Bruins!
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No further points were scored and we entered the second quarter!
Second issue
Oh, boy.
Let’s start with the positives. First up, that Matthew Poitras kid is back! Let’s see what he has!
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Nice backhand, boy! 4-1 Bruins!
Morgan Geekie then went two-on-one with David Pastrnak and nailed it 5-1 Bruins!
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A lot of nonsense happened shortly thereafter. A massive brawl ensued in a goaltending battle after Jeremy Swayman decided to take out Brandon Hagel…
…and there are penalties. Oh my gosh, is there a penalty?
These penalties were huge for the Chargers. Very big.
First, Oliver Bjorkstrand grabbed a rebound in a scramble at the net…
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…and then Darren Raddysh fired a missile from that point…
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…Then Nick Paul, seemingly the Bruins’ eternal haunt, got a put-back goal. end the period Bruins lead 5-4.
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The third issue
While there will be a lot of discussion about the second quarter and the validity of the penalties called, the sad reality is that the Bruins had plenty of opportunities to respond at even strength during this period, and unfortunately, the team that ran into that moment was the Lightning, specifically Nikita Kucherov. No penalties, no human disadvantage, just great passes and great shots. 5-5 everyone.
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Enter overtime.
over time
Tampa once again has a power play in all of this, but let’s be honest, the Chargers have every chance.
That will come back to bite you.
Penalty shootout
Jake Guentzel ended up scoring on Jeremy Swayman in the penalty shootout to complete the steal.
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The Bruins lost the Stadium Series 6-5.
Game Notes
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Your TOI leader is Charlie McAvoy, who logged 30 minutes and 19 seconds tonight.
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This was a winnable game, but the Boston Bruins got cheated. The Bruins found great success with good effort and early control of the unusual ice surface, which seemed to confuse the Lightning and seemed to cause Vasilevskiy to have trouble tracking the puck. Things are looking really, really good, and then lightning starts to attract some attention, and that attention turns into violence, which turns into a series of punishments that are either unexplained or completely avoidable. Say what you will about the Chargers, they are still loaded with extremely talented players that made the B’s’ 5 on 3 PK mincemeat, which gave them a chance to get back into this game even though we have and will continue to take action on those penalties. and The goal at the start of the game was even a strength stat for the forwards who fairly beat the defense in front of them in extremely inconvenient situations. Overtime wasn’t much better, and while Swayman did his best in the shootout, Jake Guentzel was simply too much. Boston is 4-2-0 in outdoor games.
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The referee in this game was, to put it mildly, a complete ass. Of course, considering how unhappy we are right now, I think we can admit Some The penalties Boston got in the second and third periods were genuine, reckless, and frankly stupid, and the others were just weirdly executed, late, or missed entirely. The Lightning went 3-for-8 from the field tonight, while Boston was just 1-for-3 on the power play, and Tampa was just shorthanded in the first quarter. That should explain it all.
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I’m not going to call this game rigged or anything like that anymore. After a nightmare second quarter, Boston trudged into a more conservative defensive shell game and allowed the Chargers to slowly find holes in their defense; which wasn’t hard to do given the talent on display. They may have been put back in after a major snafu, but the officiating was terrible at their job, and the Chargers are great at dealing with bad officiating. Sometimes, like tonight, that becomes painfully obvious. Right now, the Bruins aren’t good enough to overcome this problem. The long-term goal is to get as far as you can. B’s
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Jeremy Swayman faced nearly 45 shots tonight; the vast majority of them occurred in the second half of the second period. That’s both an indictment of the defense in front of him and a fact because it was a truncated version of the defense in front of him for much of the second quarter. A .891 SV% doesn’t quite tell the full story; he made some heroic saves and kept this team in a truly frustratingly inconsistent game. He also fought Andrei Vasilevskiy tonight, which I’m sure he enjoyed. Maybe if you want to play goalie, you should do a few practice rounds on Warrior’s mat. Just to get the form.
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I got to watch the ASL broadcast of the NHL and I highly recommend it; ESPN’s broadcast was as miserable as ever, compared to the ASL’s broadcast which had nothing but crowd noise, basic information, and just a few missed shots here and there, but that’s the function of the main camera. I can’t vouch for the performance of the ASL commentators, but they all seemed interested in what was going on and updated the audience frequently.
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Tonight, the Bruins lost. They got on the ice, performed well, lost everything due to bad calls and even worse officiating, but still took a point from the division leader and current NHL leader. Last time, they came back and almost went into overtime. They now know they can at least hang out, at least for a while. Now they have to start thinking about whether they can play this team in a playoff series; because if things stay the way they are, the Bruins will face the Chargers again in April. Whether it’s the regular season or the playoffs. There are many decisions to be made; the pre-Olympic deadline is approaching and the post-Olympic deadline is not far off. There’s a lot to consider here, and hopefully Don Sweeney is ready to make the best decision for the long-term health of this team.
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It’s only two o’clock until the beginning of February. This game is dramatic and silly, but you have to get on the bus to Sunrise anyway.
The Bruins will play their final game before the Olympic break on Wednesday when they take on the Florida Panthers. That game ends at 7 p.m. ET. This is a TNT/HBO game, so adjust your viewing accordingly.
We’ll see you there. Go to B
