Overtime and the road haven’t been kind to the Boston Bruins of late.
In their return from a four-game Pacific Division road trip, the Bruins will look to break a nine-game streak without a regulation win (2-2-5) when they host the defending Stanley Cup champion Vegas Golden Knights on Thursday night.
A 4-3 shootout loss to the Seattle Kraken on Monday extended Boston’s franchise-record streak of consecutive overtime/shootout games to six (2-0-4) and marked its fourth time losing a third-period lead in the past six games.
“We can’t start looking ahead to the playoffs,” Bruins captain Brad Marchand said. “There’s a lot of time left to get it done down the stretch. … We had the opportunity to have a much better road trip. In the third period with a lead, we expect to win games, and we have to.”
The aforementioned streaks have led to the Bruins not winning in regulation since Feb. 8.
In Seattle, David Pastrnak scored twice and added an assist to reach the 700-point mark for his career and he sits at 702 points. Charlie Coyle’s game-tying goal in the third period broke the Bruins’ 1-for-9 funk on the power play that had spanned the first three games of the road trip.
Coach Jim Montgomery’s team still has confidence as it returns home in a first-place tie atop the Eastern Conference standings with the Florida Panthers and just one point behind the Vancouver Canucks for the overall NHL lead.
“Even though we’re in the final home stretch, we have to continue to teach because we didn’t have a lot of practice time,” Montgomery said. “We didn’t practice once on (the western) trip. The guys have got to focus and apply the good habits and details that will give us opportunities and results.”
Former Bruins boss Bruce Cassidy brings his Golden Knights to Boston after beating the Toronto Maple Leafs 6-2 on Tuesday in the second of a five-game road trip.
It was the franchise’s 300th all-time win — making Vegas the fastest team to reach that milestone in NHL history — and snapped streaks of three games winless (0-2-1) and one win in six games (1-4-1). Toronto had been on a seven-game win streak.
“It’s a pretty good framework of how we want to play all the time, but especially given we are missing some of the dynamic players in our lineup,” Cassidy said. “We just had to check better than we have lately. … I thought we really focused on that part of the game.”
Vegas has been without two of its top three scorers for some time in Jack Eichel (knee) and Mark Stone (upper-body).
Eichel has missed 17 games, but skated for the first time since his injury on Tuesday. Stone is week-to-week.
“When (Eichel is) skating with the group, he’s one step closer (to playing),” Cassidy said. “I think it’s great to see. … Could he play on this trip? I guess. That’s why he’s here. But we’re not planning it that way.”
Jonathan Marchessault had two goals and an assist to lead the Golden Knights in Toronto. His 32 goals this season are a career-high.
William Karlsson scored his 20th goal and added a helper, while Shea Theodore had three assists in his third consecutive multi-point game.
“We definitely played a hard road game, and that’s what we knew we had to do (in Toronto),” Theodore said. “They have a lot of highly skilled players who like to fill the net and I thought we did a great job.”
–Field Level Media
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