Bruins have comeback bid spoiled by offside review in 5-4 loss to Canadiens

By Ty Anderson, 985TheSportsHub.com

Tuesday brought about yet another chapter in one of the most storied rivalries in sports. No, not the Bruins vs. Canadiens. That's played out. It's like saying "GOAT" to describe something in 2019. It's been done to death. I'm actually talking about the B's rivalry with the league's Coach's Challenge and, more specifically, the offside review.

Another chapter won by the situation room, as the Canadiens defeated the B's by a 5-4 final on Tuesday night.

Tied at 4-4 in the third period at the Bell Centre, Charlie Coyle got just enough of a Zach Senyshyn feed to beat Carey Price for the go-ahead goal for the Black and Gold. It was a deserved reward for a comeback effort that saw the Bruins erase a 3-1 deficit, and then a 4-3 deficit to finally seize the lead in hostile territory.

It seemed like the cleanest of goals possible.

Then Canadiens coach Claude Julien issued a challenge. And then we waited about five minutes as the crew investigated this goal to a painful degree and decided that Coyle was in ahead of the puck and did not maintain control on the entry. It's like they always say, if you need almost five full minutes to determine if it was a goal or not, you're clearly looking for the right things.

Naturally, the Bruins surrendered the game-winning goal just minutes after the goal was overturned.

The reversal on the ice makes that four goals the Bruins have had taken away from them in 2019-20. The first two came in Colorado (one was for goaltender interference and the other was for an offside entry), and the third was in Oct. 22's win over the Maple Leafs. It's worth mentioning that these disallowed goals have played a definite factor in both of Boston's regulation losses in 2019-20, as they dropped a two-goal final to the Avs in that aforementioned game, and lost by one tonight.

That's just plain terrible luck.

But the review was not the only reason why the Bruins faltered in this one.

Bruins netminder Tuukka Rask, who entered play with a league-best .949 save percentage, had what was his worst start of the season, with five goals surrendered on 31 shots faced. The bad goals outnumbered the good ones, too, with Rask surrendering about three 'wish he had that' goals in the losing effort.

The effort in front of Rask wasn't much better.

In fact, the Bruins were held to just 15 shots through the first 40 minutes of action, with the offense not waking up until the opening moments of the third period, with a goal from Sean Kuraly and the aforementioned non-goal from Coyle. The Bruins finished with two single-digit shot periods, which is hardly a recipe for success against a team with Price in net.

But the B's did see a few of their skaters get on the board, as both Kuraly and Connor Clifton scored their first goals of the new campaign, while Anders Bjork scored his second goal of the season.

David Pastrnak, meanwhile, continued his white-hot ways, with his 15th goal of the season on a power-play bomb.

With their six-game winning streak snapped, the Bruins will head to Detroit for a Friday night head-to-head with the Red Wings.