The Boston Bruins were happy with their five-on-five game Thursday night. But the impact of Oilers superstar Connor McDavid goes far beyond just five-on-five play, and the Bruins saw that up close and personal in a 3-1 loss to the Oilers on home ice.
And for the Oilers, it was a night bookended by McDavid production. It was McDavid who had the primary assist on Edmonton’s first goal of the night, and McDavid who buried the shorthanded goal to bury the Bruins in the third period.
Sturm: Bruins needed more emotion
After the game, Bruins head coach Marco Sturm admitted that he was overall happy with the Bruins’ five-on-five game, but found himself frustrated with the lack of emotion from his squad in this contest.
“That little bit of pop, little bit of energy was missing,” Sturm acknowledged. “It was a good game. But little mistakes cost us.”ruin
In what was a tight-checking affair all night long, the Oilers found their opening late in the first period when a Mark Kastelic trip put the Oilers on the power play. On the man advantage, the Oil needed just 30 seconds to strike, as Ryan Nugent-Hopkins connected off a feed from McDavid and buried one by Jeremy Swayman.
The Bruins answered within three minutes with a power-play goal of their own, however, as Pavel Zacha went top shelf with a beauty of a backhander on new Edmonton netminder Tristan Jarry on a great give-and-go with Elias Lindholm.
The goal was Zacha’s ninth of the campaign, while Lindholm’s assist was good fro his 22nd point through 25 games this season.
Unable to solve Pickard
But it would be all the Bruins had to show for what was ultimately a 25-shot effort. The Bruins also failed to get anything by a cold Calvin Pickard, who was forced to come into this contest late in the second period following an injury to Jarry.
Pickard stopped all 12 shots faced in 23:52 of relief, while Jarry finished his night with saves on all but one of the 13 shots faced before leaving the game.
Swayman, meanwhile, stopped 22 of 25 in the losing effort.
The loss also marked just the second time this season that the Black and Gold went an entire game without a five-on-five goal scored, joining a Nov. 17 loss against the Hurricanes in that respect. The Bruins’ lone goal in that contest came by way of a last-minute power-play goal from Riley Tufte.
Up next, the Bruins will host the Canucks at TD Garden on Saturday night. The Canucks will come to Boston on the second leg of a traveling back-to-back, and are actually 2-0-0 since trading captain Quinn Hughes to Minnesota last week.
