Tough bounce, slow start leave Bruins in a hole early

BOSTON – The puck can take some funny bounces, but rookie defenseman Matt Grzelcyk and the Bruins weren’t laughing about this one.

Tampa Bay’s Anton Stralman flipped the puck high in the air into the Bruins’ zone early in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference semifinals Wednesday night at the Garden and Grzelcyk reached down to block it with both gloves as it bounced in front of him. He lost track of the puck after it hit his hands, even though it was right in [...]

BOSTON – The puck can take some funny bounces, but rookie defenseman Matt Grzelcyk and the Bruins weren’t laughing about this one.

Tampa Bay’s Anton Stralman flipped the puck high in the air into the Bruins’ zone early in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference semifinals Wednesday night at the Garden and Grzelcyk reached down to block it with both gloves as it bounced in front of him. He lost track of the puck after it hit his hands, even though it was right in front of him, and he turned in the wrong direction when he looked for it.

Tyler Johnson collected the loose puck, skated past Grzelcyk and fed Ondrej Palat on a 2-on-1 against Adam McQuaid and beat Tuukka Rask for a goal just 1:47 into the game.

“The puck kind of felt like it had back spin on me on the ice,” Grzelcyk said. “I thought it maybe went behind me. So I took my eye off the puck, I guess, and they capitalized because they’re a good team. Obviously, not the way you want to start a game. It was just tough bouncing back after that.”

It certainly wasn’t the fast start that Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy wanted from his team after it fell behind 1-0 and 3-1 in a 4-2 loss in Game 2 Monday night in Tampa.

The Lightning struck again less than two minutes later when Palat scored on a deflection at 3:19 and Tampa Bay went on to win, 4-1, to take a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven playoff series.

The early 2-0 deficit was too much to overcome.

“It’s not easy,” rookie defenseman Charlie McAvoy said. “You want to be the ones that throw the first punch, but we face that challenge and try and come back. Unfortunately we weren’t able to tonight. We need to make sure we don’t put ourselves in that situation anymore.”

The Bruins won Game 1 in Tampa Bay, 6-2, but haven’t looked like the same team since. Game 4 will be Friday night at the Garden.

Cassidy said he wasn’t bothered as much as others by Grzelcyk’s early give-away.

“It’s not good obviously, but we’ve come back a lot,” he said. “We’ve been a team, I think we’ve won, giving up the first goal, probably maybe 18 games this year. So this is nothing new. You’ve got to play through that. It doesn’t help. It gives the other team a boost, but you’ve still got 50-something minutes left. The crowd, there’s going to be a lull, but you’ve got to go get it back.”

Cassidy said he was bothered more by Tampa’s next two goals because the Bruins weren’t physical enough in front of their own net.

“The second and third goals to me were much worse in terms of losing our zip and taking the wind out of our sails,” Cassidy said.

Grzelcyk’s give-away wasn’t the only one by the Bruins, but it was the most egregious. Bruins fans may have screamed, “Son of a Bull Gang.” Grzelcyk’s father, John, works on the Bull Gang that changes the Garden from an ice rink to a basketball court and vice versa.

“That’s on me,” Grzelcyk said of his miscue. “That can’t happen to start a game, especially. We really wanted to obviously come out harder and get pucks deep. I thought we kind of able to do that, but by the time we started to do that it was already 2-0. So we have to bounce back for Game 4.”

During the regular season, the Bruins were 2-0 at home against the Lightning, winning 3-2 on Nov. 29 and 4-2 on March 29. Over the years, the Bruins have gone 40-8-6 vs. Tampa Bay at the Garden in the regular season, including 17-4-0 over the last eight years.

With the temperature nearly reaching 90 degrees in Boston on Wednesday, however, the Lightning probably felt more at home here than ever before.

Grzelcyk, 24, grew up in Charlestown, has skated on the Garden ice since he was 2 years old and scored in overtime to give Boston University its 30th Beanpot championship. So he knows the Garden ice well, but that knowledge didn’t do him any good when he mishandled the bouncing puck.

The Bruins were out-played for much of the night, however. Kevan Miller didn’t do a good job of clearing the puck before Anthony Cirelli scored his first career playoff goal on a rebound of his own shot to give the Lightning a 3-1 lead with 3:17 left in the opening period. Patrice Bergeron had scored on the power play for Boston with 5:48 left in the period. Steven Stamkos scored an empty-net goal with 41.2 seconds left.

Tampa Bay out-shot the Bruins, 37-29. Grzelcyk blocked a team-high three shots.

-- Contact Bill Doyle at william.doyle@telegram.com. Follow him on Twitter @BillDoyle15