After playing their best hockey of the season leading into the three-day holiday break, the Boston Bruins came back with a major dud. After winning four out of their five games, they reverted back to self-inflected mistakes and for the second time this season, they were outplayed, outhustled, and out-executed by the Columbus Blue Jackets, this time on Friday night at Nationwide Arena.
After Columbus rolled to a 5-1 win back in November that cost Jim Montgomery his job the next day, Boston had played much better in all aspects of their game, but that was not the case Friday night. Here are three takeaways from another brutal loss for the Black and Gold in 2024-25.
Bruins create more self-inflected mistakes
Two former Blue Jackets made their return to Columbus with the Black and Gold and one of them was arguably their best player and he was hung out left to dry by his teammates. Goalie Joonas Korpisalo (27 saves) made some big saves, but he couldn't stop them all, including a three-goal stretch in the second period.
In the middle period alone, they allowed three breakaways in the period and Korpisalo made a nice save on a Kent Johnson attempt, but a bad change that saw four players head off at the same time led to an Adam Fantelli goal for a 2-1 lead. Then a second goal from Sean Monahan over a minute later followed by a Dmitri Voronkov power play strike made it 4-1.
This is the second bad loss this season to Columbus for the Bruins and each one was self-inflected with bad plays, decisions, and not creating enough scoring opportunities. If this loss doesn't wake them up for a rematch Saturday night at the TD Garden, I don't know what will.
Bruins made things easy for Columbus and Elvis Merzlikins
In the first period, Boston managed just five shots, and in the second period, they had nine. However, when the Bruins won puck battles (very few) and had chances to shoot, they passed it up for a perfect shot that never materialized. When the Bruins did get shots, they were not exactly high-danger chances.
Columbus did do a good job of keeping the Bruins away from the goal most of the night and even blocked shots and took away passing lanes. There are times this season when the Bruins have a shooting mentality, Friday night was not one of them.
Columbus put on a power play clinic
By now you know how bad the Bruins power play has been this year. On the flip side, the Blue Jackets haven't been much better, but boy, did they put on a clinic on the man advantage to the tune of three goals on three chances.
Monahan opened the scoring with a first-period power-play goal, and then in the second, Voronkov scored on both Columbus chances. His first one was a nice in-tight shot under the crossbar and his second, he just outworked the Bruins in front of the net to bury a rebound. Did the Blue Jackets get away with a penalty off the face-off when Brandon Carlo had his stick slashed leaving them basically playing 5-on-3? Yes, but when they had a chance to clear the puck, they didn't.
After the game, the two teams are flying to Boston for the rematch on Saturday night, which is the final game this season between the two teams. Believe it or not, Columbus is going for the season sweep. If the Bruins just miss out on a postseason berth, remember the first two games of the season against the Blue Jackets as points lost.