Going into Friday afternoon’s game against the New York Rangers, the Boston Bruins were extremely shorthanded. Before the game, the Bruins announced some roster moves with Georgii Merkulov recalled from the Providence Bruins in the American Hockey League (AHL) and Casey Mittlestadt was activated off of injured reserve. Boston also put Matej Blümel on injured reserve and assigned Michael Callahan to the AHL.
To make matters even worse, head coach Marco Sturm announced before the game that David Pastrnak and Pavel Zacha were both out and considered day-to-day. That was less than ideal before a pivotal matchup with the Rangers for the Eastern Conference standings. In the end, it proved to be just way too much for the Black and Gold to overtime.
The Rangers scored two goals in each of the first two periods on their way to a win and added another frustrating loss to the Bruins' record. Here are three observations after Boston fell to 14-12-0.
Bruins penalties hurt again
Stop me if you’ve heard this before: the Boston Bruins took too many penalties, and the other team took advantage. Boston was whistled for three penalties, a minor to Marat Khusnutdinov and a double-minor high-sticking penalty to Hampus Lindholm. The latter gave the Rangers a short 5-on-3, and just as the first penalty expired, New York scored.
Mika Zibanejad scored on a one-timer from the left circle before he was credited with another power-play goal 45 seconds later. Until they stay out of the box, the Bruins continue to put themselves behind the eight-ball too many times.
Morgan Geekie stays hot
Trailing 4-0 after two periods, it would have been easy for the Bruins to pack it in and play out the final 20 minutes, but they didn’t. Instead, they scored two goals early in the period with Morgan Geekie scoring the second one for his team-leading 18th of the season.
He tipped a Henri Jokhiraju shot from the point just five seconds after Rangers coach Mike Sullivan called a timeout to regroup his team. That goal came after Mittlestadt got the Bruins on the board in his first game back from an injury.
Bruins roster gutted with injuries
Not the fault of Sturm, and all teams deal with injuries, but this Bruins roster is completely gutted with injuries. Viktor Arvidsson is out on injured reserve, and Charlie McAvoy is also on injured reserve after taking a puck to the face a couple of weeks ago.
Now the question is, how long are Pastrnak and Zacha expected to be out of the lineup with their injuries? Boston has a quick turnaround hosting the Detroit Red Wings on Saturday night. Missing one or both players would be another big blow for the Black and Gold.