Over the last two years, the Boston Bruins have done a better job than anybody else at minimizing the hiccups that come with an 82-game NHL regular season.
With the second half of the schedule drawing up and another challenging test against the visiting Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday night, Bruins coach Jim Montgomery is aware that his squad must rise to the occasion.
Montgomery stated, “Teams will make you pick up the pace.” “We have four games on the road (in challenging conditions) against a fantastic Tampa club coming up. Everyone pauses after the All-Star break and begins to consider, “Do we have a shot?” The intensity then increases five more times. More players must step up to the plate.”
The Bruins, who lead the Atlantic Division and have gone 5-3-2 in their past ten games, lost to Pittsburgh 6-5 on Thursday, ending their four-game winning run. This season, they have only suffered three regulation losses at home (11-3-3).
In the opening 7:21 of Thursday’s game, there were five goals scored in all, and Pittsburgh took a 5-2 lead early in the second half. Despite a three-goal counterattack to tie the game, the Bruins’ comeback was just too little.
Boston was unable to overcome two goals from Brad Marchand and three points from David Pastrnak and Morgan Geekie.
“The fact that there is never any quitting is encouraging. Charlie Coyle, a forward for the Boston Bostons, remarked, “We take pride in that. But during that game, it’s not a smart idea to put oneself in a few distinct holes. Though we prefer not to play that way, it’s nice to see us fighting back.”
After returning from his time playing for Canada in the IIHF World Junior Championship, rookie forward Matt Poitras may be included in Boston’s lineup on Saturday.
Tampa Bay is now playing its first visit to Boston of the season after leading Pittsburgh and three other teams by one point for the second and last wild-card place in the Eastern Conference as of Friday. On Nov. 20, the Lightning defeated the Bruins 5–4 in overtime.
a 4-1 victory away from injured The Lightning are 6-4-0 in their last 10 games, but their victory over Minnesota was just their second in the previous five.
Defensemen accounted for three of Tampa Bay’s four goals, including Darren Raddysh’s first two of the year in a 2:29 stretch. The lamp was lit by Victor Hedman and Brandon Hagel as well.
“We’ve just got to make sure we build off that and get ready for Boston on Saturday,” added Raddysh.
After Mikhail Sergachev was placed on injured reserve earlier this week due to an upper-body ailment, the Lightning have made a number of roster changes on the back end. On Thursday, Declan Carlile, an AHL affiliate of Syracuse, will make his NHL debut.
On Friday, Carlile and Seth Day were transferred to Syracuse. Emil Lilleberg and Jack Thompson were called back.
Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper stated, “We’ve got to generate a little bit more offense, especially from the back end.” “That was in our game plan (on Thursday) and it worked out well for us.”
In addition to setting a new franchise record for the most points before the 40-game threshold of a season, Nikita Kucherov assisted on Hedman’s goal for his 64th point, tying Colorado’s Nathan MacKinnon for the NHL lead.