Now that the Boston Bruins have played their second round-robin game, here are some of the takeaways.
The Boston Bruins first period was overall not the team’s best performance. The Bruins’ first shift of the game was extremely weak and they barely had any puck possession within the first few minutes of the game.
The Lightning came out strong and were winning almost every puck battle in the first period. Only 43 seconds into the game the Lightning were already on the power play as Jeremy Lauzon was called for hooking.
However, the Boston Bruins penalty killers were able to kill off this initial penalty pretty easily. On the offensive side, the Bruins were not looking too hot. They were passing up on prime scoring opportunities opting to pass rather than shoot which proved costly for the Bruins squad.
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Charlie Coyle had a good opportunity on a two on one a few minutes into the game. But, he choose to pass cross slot instead of taking a shot which ended up getting tipped by a Lightning defender effectively ending that scoring opportunity.
The Bruins were then called for a too many men on the ice penalty. The Lightning capitalized on this power play only seconds in to lengthen their lead to two.
The Bruins seemed to be lacking energy for a majority of this period. However, things started to change a bit for the Bruins after Torey Krug fought Blake Coleman. This seemed to be the wake-up call the Bruins squad needed.
In the last few minutes of the first period, the Bruins upped their physicality and intensity and it made a huge difference in the Bruins game.
David Pastrnak had a great scoring chance towards the end of the period but the puck was pulled off the line at the last second by a Tampa defender.
The Bruins came back out in the second picking right back up where they left off at the end of the first period. Then about four minutes into the period the Bruins were back on the power play as Coleman went to the box for an interference call.
Pastrnak, Bergeron, and Krug got some good quality chances on this power play but couldn’t quite get them to go.
However, the Boston Bruins climbed within one on a goal from Charlie McAvoy with three minutes left in the period.
The Kuraly line started to gain momentum in the last ten minutes of the period and that carried over into the third period.
About two minutes into the third period, Wagner scored to tie the game. The Bruins played pretty well in the third period and had a handful of good scoring opportunities but no one on the squad was able to capitalize on any of these chances. Then with a minute and 27 seconds left Tyler Johnson but Tampa ahead. The Bruins weren’t able to answer back and ended up losing the game.
While the Bruins lost this game they improved tremendously from their past two games. They still have one more round-robin game to play to hopefully be able to shake the rest of the dust off and be prepared for the first round.