BOSTON – With one final chance to show the urgency and desire that’s been so scattershot for the Bruins on home ice this season, they dropped one more loathsomely bad performance in a 6-1 loss to the Ottawa Senators Saturday afternoon at TD Garden.
After the Bruins scored the first goal of the game, the Senators stormed out with four goals in the first 10 minutes of the second period while the B's were outmanned, outgunned and outworked by a team already scheduling tee times for next week.
Perhaps appropriately the loss dropped the Bruins back below .500 on home ice with a 17-18-6 record at the TD Garden this season. The real sad part for the Black and Gold is that the Detroit Red Wings also lost to the Rangers, and the Bruins could have pushed their way back into a playoff spot if they could have summoned a better effort against Ottawa.
After the Flyers beat the Penguins 3-1 on Saturday, the Bruins were officially eliminated from the playoffs.
Things started out oddly for the Black and Gold with Jonas Gustavsson hopping on the ice for pregame warm-ups and getting the start for Boston and Tuukka Rask ruled out of the game with an illness after taking just a couple of warm-up shots. David Pastrnak started things off well for the Bruins by getting behind the Ottawa defense and snapping home his 15th goal of the season past Andrew Hammond, but that was the lone highlight of the day for the Black and Gold.
Chris Neil jammed home a loose puck past Gustavsson less than two minutes into the second period, and Ottawa added goals from Zach Smith, Matt Puempel, Mika Zibanejad in the second to take a commanding lead. Jean-Gabriel Pageau and Smith added goals in the third period as well as the final 20 minutes amounted to one giant waving of the white flag of surrender for the Bruins.