After beginning their five-game road trip with two losses to the Buffalo Sabres and Calgary Flames, the Boston Bruins were set up to close out the trip with three straight wins. They beat the Edmonton Oilers and Vancouver Canucks to sit at 2-1-1 on the trip, with the finale on Tuesday night against the Seattle Kraken.
Boston was coming into the game with three days off, while Seattle was playing on the backend of a back-to-back. They beat Calgary, 5-1, on Monday night on the road and were supposed to be the more tired team. That wasn't the case.
The game was tied 1-1 through the first period, by Seattle scored three goals each in the second and third periods to pull away for a 7-4 victory in what was a very disappointing way to close out their road trip. To be fair, it was a lot of the same mistakes that haunted the Black and Gold that have haunted them all year long.
Bruins coach Marco Sturm doesn't hold back after Bruins loss to Kraken
After the game, head coach Marco Sturm joined the NESN broadcast and didn't hold back in his assessment of his team's performance. They took four penalties, two nine seconds apart in the first period, that led to a Kraken 5-on-3 goal. They ended up allowing three power-play goals for Seattle.
"We were very immature, I can tell you that," Sturm said. "That's what happened today. They didn't do anything. They went back in their zone, they stopped, they went up and down the ice, and we made the mistakes. And of course, penalties hurt us again, all of them. And now all of a sudden, you give up two points here we definitely should have grabbed today, and that's the most frustrating and disappointing part of it."
Immature might be an understatement. On Seattle's first period 5-on-3, goalie Jeremy Swayman took an ill-advised penalty just nine seconds into Nikita Zadorov's penalty when he cut down Jordan Eberle in front of the net. Of course. Eberle scored on the ensuing power play. From that point on, it was a comedy of errors that piled up and led to seven pucks finding the back of the Bruins' net. They are not built to win games like that. Not many teams are, but definitely not this Boston team.
Now they get a quick turnaround and return home Thursday night to host the Flames. The first game coming off a long road trip out West is never fun. To compound matters, Calgary will be coming into the game on a back-to-back, playing in Montreal against the Canadiens on Wednesday night. What could go wrong?