The Boston Bruins overcame a lot to make things interesting Wednesday night in Anaheim.
Down one on just the first shot of the night, and down by two on separate occasions, Morgan Geekie (two goals) and Bruins battled all the way back to a tied contest in the third period. But as they have so many times this season, the Bruins found a way to let go of the rope late yet again, and surrendered the game-losing goal in the final six minutes of regulation for the fourth time this season.
This time around, the game-losing goal came with 3:35 left in regulation, which is the second-latest of the four this year.
“You look back on these [games], and it’s kind of two points we threw away again,” Geekie, who tied the game at 3-3 with a power-play goal in the third period, said after the loss.
“I think offensively today we did a good enough job that could’ve won the game,” B’s coach Marco Sturm said after the loss, which was Boston’s third loss in their last four games. “But defensively, it wasn’t good enough. I think, in general, it starts with our D. We just didn’t do our job, let’s put it that way.”
The Bruins’ struggles in ‘close and late’ situations reared its head at the worst possible time for the Bruins, too, as the Ducks by all means took over the game once the Bruins finally tied things up. It didn’t help that Korpisalo, who made 29 saves in the losing effort, was screened by teammate Alex Steeves on the game-winning goal from Ducks defenseman Ian Moore.
“Frustrating, you know? We’re in it except the last 10 minutes,” Korpisalo admitted. “It sucks to lose in the last five minutes once again.”
In addition to the goals from Geekie, the Bruins also got a scoring lift from bottom-six winger Mikey Eyssimont in the losing effort. The goal was Eyssimont’s fifth of the season, putting him just four away from matching last year’s total between Tampa Bay and Seattle.
Speaking with the media prior to the game, Sturm confirmed that injured defenseman Charlie McAvoy underwent successful facial surgery, and is at home recovering. The Bruins are not putting a timeline on McAvoy at this point in time.
The Bruins will return to action Friday night when they visit the Kings in Los Angeles.
