Few things in the hockey world can compare to a Boston Bruins vs. Montreal Canadiens on a Saturday night, live from Montreal.
The Bruins know that. The Canadiens know that. The whole hockey world knows that the next game after an emotional marquee match is high danger for a letdown.
And in the off chance that they didn’t, Monday came with confirmation of exactly that, as the Bruins failed to find the same emotional intensity they had in the Montreal game. Consequently, the Bruins sustained a 3-1 loss to the Hurricanes at TD Garden.
“We talked about it in the room before the game,” Bruins forward Alex Steeves said of the emotional letdown. “They’re not all gonna be at the Bell Centre on Hockey Night in Canada. We didn’t have enough emotion tonight.”
Bruins head coach Marco Sturm could see it coming from a mile away, too. And not even he was safe from the fatigue.
“I never look for an excuse, but even I felt it,” Sturm admitted following the loss. “I felt it today. It was an emotional night the other night in Montreal, and we felt it in the morning, we felt it before the game. It was just a slow day [Monday]. And I could see it in their eyes. We were just mentally, physically not 100 percent, that’s for sure.”
In goal, the Bruins’ Jeremy Swayman was by all means the only thing the club had going for them. After stopping all 10 first-period shots thrown his way, Swayman stopped eight straight shots to open the middle frame before Jordan Staal broke through with a net-front putaway on the 19th Carolina shot of the evening. Swayman would ultimately finish with a 29-of-32 line in the crease.
At the other end of the rink, Carolina’s Pyotr Kochetkov finished with 29 saves on 30 shots faced, and did not allow the Bruins to get on the board until Riley Tufte’s garbage-time, power-play strike with just 9.6 seconds left in regulation.
Under Sturm, the Bruins have shown a willingness to battle through anything. Even in losses, the Bruins have battled back and made things closer than they probably ever should have been. But Monday night may have came with the confirmation that there’s a limit to what the Bruins can overcome and still get results. See, this loss (just Boston’s third in their last 12 games) came with the Bruins down four lineup regulars, with Viktor Arvidsson and Charlie McAvoy the latest losses from the B’s lineup, joining Elias Lindholm and Casey Mittelstadt on the shelf.
That, with fatigue mixed in, is not a strong recipe against a team like Carolina, who improved to 6-1-1 in their last eight games behind Monday’s win.
Up front, Tufte and Matej Blumel made their season debuts for Boston. In addition to the goal, Tufte finished this game with two shots and a hit in 15:13, while Blumel had a giveaway and one shot in 13:10 of ice time.
Marco Sturm’s team will now head out to California for what will be a four-game road trip that will kick off Wednesday night against the Ducks. The Bruins lost to the Ducks by a 7-5 final when these teams squared off in Boston back in October.
