Between Dec. 29 and Mar. 9, the Boston Bruins lost a grand total of three games in regulation. That two-and-a-half month stretch didn’t allow them to close the gap between themselves and the Atlantic-Division leading Tampa Bay Lightning, but it created some space between themselves and the third-place Toronto Maple Leafs.
Over the last few days, things have changed for the Bruins. They’re no longer one of the red-hot teams in the NHL. Instead, they’ve dropped three games in a row in regulation to the Penguins, Blue Jackets and Jets. Falling behind early has been a major issue in all three of those losses.
Last Sunday in Pittsburgh, the Bruins conceded the first two goals of the game. Tuesday night in Columbus, they scored the first goal but wound up allowing Columbus to score three unanswered goals before the end of the opening frame. And last night, they spotted Winnipeg a 2-0 lead before the 12-minute mark of the first.
“Poor starts, first and foremost,” forward Patrice Bergeron said after the loss to the Jets, per NHL.com. “We shot ourselves in the foot at the start of every game [in the losing streak], so tough to get back in this league. Tough to do that every night. And we’ve done it on the tail end of our [19-game] point streak.”
The Bruins won’t want to hear this, but it’s impossible for most teams to roll from December through April without so much as a hiccup. This was bound to happen. They played a stretch of tough road games so it only made sense that this mini slump would occur now.
“Listen, I don’t like to lose one in a row so there’s always concern,” Bruins head coach Bruce Cassidy said. “There’s different factors that go into it. I think we played three very good hockey teams this week, that’s part of it. Part of it is, as mentioned, is we haven’t started on time so we’ve put ourselves in a hole so we’re playing catch-up every night. That’s a bad formula in the National Hockey League.”
If you’re a Bruins fan looking for tiny positives at this point, you can just look at the slight improvement in each of the first periods over the last three games. They went from a 17.39 percent CF% in the first 20 minutes against the Pens, to 47.62 percent against the Blue Jackets, to 55.88 percent against the Jets last night, per Natural Stat Trick (I told you it was a small positive).
It’s also important to note that they’ve been dealing with some significant injuries of late. In last night’s game, they were without: Torey Krug, Kevan Miller, Marcus Johansson, David Pastrnak, Matt Grzelcyk and Jake DeBrusk. Many of those players will return before the end of the regular season, which means the Bruins will only be getting deeper over the next few weeks.
The schedule will also get easier for them. After Saturday’s home game against Columbus, the Bruins will play five of the next seven games away from the TD Garden, but they’ll have dates with non-playoff teams like the Devils, Panthers (twice), Rangers and Red Wings.
There’s still a lot of time for the Bruins to get back on track before the playoffs start in April. There’s no need to hit the panic button just yet.
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Joey Alfieri is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @joeyalfieri.
