Brad Marchand wants the passengers off the Boston Bruins bus.
The Boston Bruins are turning into the NHL’s Jekyll-and-Hyde team. The Bruins started off this afternoon’s bout with the Tampa Bay Lightning with energy and heart. Patrice Bergeron put the Black and Gold up just thirty-three seconds into the game. (If you we’re watching it on NESN, you had to take a moment to wonder about the health of Jack Edwards.) That early lead brought hope and excitement to Bruins Nation.
The Bruins then proceeded to play some very rough hockey. The Lightning responded four minutes later with a goal of their own. Steven Stamkos chose to tussle with Brad Marchand halfway through the first period to wake the Lightning up. Tampa Bay did just that as the Bruins just began to crumble defensively. J.T. Brown proceeded to blow past Dennis Seidenberg and Zdeno Chara to get the puck past Tuukka Rask to take a 2-1 lead. Then Tampa scored again just fifteen seconds later. The Lightning ended up scoring four goals in a row on Boston.
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Many people have argued on social media that the B’s chose to play Rask one too many times. Fatigue plus Rask having a bad game just let to his departure. The Lightning chased Tuukka Rask out of the net midway through the second period. Rask had given up four goals on twelve shots (.667). Niklas Svedberg stopped six of seven shots (.867) in relief.
While Zdeno Chara and Daniel Paille did score for Boston, the Lightning had held the momentum since the Stamkos-Marchand fight and never surrendered it. It was another rough game for the Bruins were small mistakes and bad decisions forced them to surrender two incredibly important points. Now the B’s are just treading water when they should be fighting for their playoff lives.
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“With the situation that we’re in and how tight is in the playoff race right now, we can’t really afford to be making little mistakes that are costing us goals, and ultimately games,” said Boston’s Little Ball of Hate after the Bruins 5-3 loss to the Lightning. “Right now it’s a matter of being committed to the game, and the system. We all need to be better at that. If not then it’s going to cost us our season. We need to buckle down and smarten up.”
Marchand finished the game with an assist on the Bergeron goal and was a +1 for the night. He ended up with seven minutes in penalties and was one of the players that put up a full sixty minute effort for the Bruins this afternoon.
“It’s frustrating,” continued Marchand. “You look at other teams around the league that we’re battling with, and they’re ‘going’ on every single night. It seems like everybody is playing the system, and playing the right way. We don’t know if we’re going to get that on each night. We can’t afford that. We need everybody committed to playing the system, and having their best game every night. I’ve said it before…if we have one passenger then that’s enough to cost us the game.”
The Bruins are only one point ahead of the Ottawa Senators who now have two games in hand over Boston.