Bruins place forward on waivers

Stuck in a three-game slide following Thursday's 5-2 loss to the Stars, the Bruins officially made a roster move following Friday's practice, with forward Riley Tufte placed on waivers.

Tufte had appeared in two games prior to his move to the waiver wire, with his last appearance coming in Boston's Oct. 16 win over the Avalanche. That game did not go as planned for the 6-foot-6 wing, though, as he was assessed two minor penalties (both in the offensive zone) that led to Avalanche power-play goals and ultimately ended after just 6:54 of time on ice.

Tufte, who joined the Bruins on a one-year deal worth the league-minimum $775,000 this past season, will report to AHL Providence if he clears waivers at 2 p.m. Saturday.

The decision to move on from Tufte also opens the door to the Bruins finally signing Tyler Johnson, who has remained with the club on a pro tryout agreement, to an NHL contract.

Johnson, who was one of Black and Gold's training camp standouts, has been practicing with the club even without a contract, and has shown a willingness to wait things out while the Bruins sort out of their cap space situation. Moving Tufte's deal down to the minors could be the opening on that front.

The 34-year-old Johnson put up 17 goals and 31 points with Chicago last year, and could be a notable boost to Boston's third line and their power play, which has sputtered out of the gate this season.

Not even a return to the comforts of TD Garden was enough to snap the Bruins out of their early-season funk Thursday night, as the Bruins fell into penalty troubles once again and struggled to manage the puck in a streak-extending 5-2 loss to the Stars.

“Our attitudes need to go in a better, healthier direction," Bruins head coach Jim Montgomery said after his team's latest setback. "Our attitudes are not in the moment. They’re on the results.”

By not being in the moment, Montgomery feels that his team is getting frustrated too quickly, and that they're seemingly forgetting that winning games in this league is "really difficult." That, for the Bruins, has manifested itself in the ugliness that's become all too common, with those aforementioned penalty woes, and games seemingly slipping out of the B's grasp in the blink of an eye.

To make things all the more frustrating, this latest loss actually came with the Bruins out of the gate looking like a team ready to put their mini-slide behind them, with a shot barrage on the Stars' Casey DeSmith and a four-on-four goal from Matt Poitras to David Pastrnak to give them a 1-0 lead.

Knotted at 1-1 through 20 minutes of play, the Bruins' issues got worse — and in absolutely brutal fashion — when the Stars scored back-to-back-to-back power-play goals in a span of 8:28 in the middle frame.

With the loss, the Bruins dropped to 3-4-1, and though they're still just three points away from the first-place Panthers, they are also officially just two points ahead of last-place Montreal in the Atlantic Division.

Here are the 98.5 The Sports Hub (dot com) 3 Stars from a loss to the Stars...

If there's a positive to take from Thursday's loss, other than the fact that the game ultimately came to end without another power-play goal against in the third period, it's that Justin Brazeau returned to the lineup and looked as good as he has at any point in this young season.

Brazeau even got on the board with a power-play strike of his own.

Even beyond the power-play goal, the 6-foot-5, 220-pound Brazeau was all over the ice (in a good way), generating high-danger chances and second-chance opportunities throughout the evening.

So much has been made about the B's middle six and its inability to get some scoring on the board at the same rate it did a year ago. And a player like Brazeau is included in that conversation given the impressive sample size he had a year ago, with five goals in 19 regular-season games and a solid playoff showing in a limited role. To get him going, even if it's just one goal in one game, and to have him respond the way he did after being scratched against the Predators has to be a positive development in an otherwise frustrating game for the Bruins.

If you want more proof that we are all getting old and that time is an illusion, 15-season veteran Tyler Seguin's Dallas tenure is now four times longer than his Boston tenure. Four! And Seguin's latest visit to TD Garden felt like his most impactful one post-Bruins, too, as the 32-year-old posted a goal and two helpers in the victory.

In addition to the point production, Seguin also drew a penalty against the Bruins' Brad Marchand, and had his best 2024-25 showing at the faceoff dot to date, with wins in five of his seven faceoffs.

Seguin wasn't the only Star to post a three-point night, and perhaps the only player to have a better night than Seguin was teammate Matt Duchene, who also put up a goal and two assists in the Dallas victory.

I think the only reason you'd put Duchene's night above Seguin's night was the fact that Duchene was able to draw the interference penalty against Bruins defenseman Parker Wotherspoon that led to the Stars' third goal of the night, which ultimately held as the game-winning goal by the night's end.