Insufficient goaltending, overall poor play leads to B's third loss in last five games.
BOSTON -- These games happen from time to time, and one of them happened on Thursday night. The Bruins don’t have much time to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
As sloppy as they’ve looked since opening the season with a 7-0 loss at Washington on Oct. 3, the B’s were the victims of insufficient goaltending, weak penalty-killing and overall poor or indifferent play in an 8-5 loss to the Canucks at TD Garden. The Bruins (8-5-2), who have lost two of their last three games and three of their last five, now have to host Atlantic Division rival Toronto on Saturday night before a Sunday night home game against the Golden Knights.
“It was one of those nights that the puck just found a way to go in,” said starting goalie Jaroslav Halak, who was pulled 14:53 into the second period, after surrendering his fifth goal on 19 shots and leaving the B’s in a 5-3 hole.”
“Obviously, I’ve got to be better, and we’ve got to be better as a group. That’s the bottom line. We’ve got to regroup quickly. We’ve got two tough games coming.”
The B’s surrendered five goals in a wild second period that saw Halak, who entered the game with sparkling numbers (4-1-2, 1.45 goals-against average, .952 saves percentage), get pulled for the first time in eight starts this season. Coach Bruce Cassidy’s decision to turn to Tuukka Rask worked at first -- Jake DeBrusk scored his second of the night to bring the B’s within a goal at 5-4, but Erik Gudbranson beat Rask through a screen in the final minute of the second to put the Canucks up by a pair again.
“Obviously, neither guy was on their game, so that’s a problem,” Cassidy said.
“I didn’t think (Halak) was playing well, to be honest with you. He’s been very good for us, and (Rask) hasn’t had a lot of work, so it was an opportunity for him to go in and work on his game. It didn’t work out the way we’d like.”
Halak, coming off his first regulation loss of the season (albeit a 39-save, 1-0 defeat last Saturday at Nashville), didn’t have the best start. Bo Horvat beat him just 2:46 into the game, on a stoppable shot.
Horvat’s eighth of the season was unassisted. He turned back into the slot with the puck after Danton Heinen’s one-touch pass to David Backes just inside the Bruins’ blue line bounced over Backes’ stick, and found the far side with an unscreened wrist shot.
The B’s tied it with 6:19 left in the first, on something of a rarity -- a goal by a defenseman (Matt Grzelcyk), which didn’t involve their top line. David Krejci hit Grzelcyk coming in late on a rush, and Grzelcyk became just the third B’s blue-liner to score a goal this season with a high slapper past Jacob Markstrom (23 saves).
The B’s took their only lead in the first minute of the third period, when Patrice Bergeron jammed home Torey Krug’s rebound for a 2-1 advantage after just 36 seconds. Things went mostly downhill after that, though: With ex-Bruin Loui Eriksson, who had scored only one goal in his first 16 games, netting a pair (one during a power play), the Canucks never trailed after Ben Hutton’s power-play goal made it 3-2 at 8:28. DeBrusk tied it 32 seconds later on his first of two goals, but the Canucks scored three more in the final 6:27.
The lowlight came 9:40 into the third period. The Bruins, who had just failed to score on a 5-on-3 manpower advantage that could have pulled them back within a goal, fell behind 7-4 by allowing a shorthanded goal instead. Rask left his net to play a puck the Canucks had lobbed out of their defensive zone, had it knocked out of the air by Horvat when he tried to clear it, and watched Horvat, just out of the penalty box, put the puck into the empty net.
“It’s never easy” to come off the bench, said Rask, who surrendered three goals on 14 shots and took the loss, “but you try to be ready, come in and do some damage control. Today, I did (damage) my own way.”