Bruins fall 6-3 to Predators on home ice
The Boston Bruins couldn’t hold off the Nashville Predators defensively on Tuesday night, dropping a 6-3 defeat at TD Garden.
With the loss, the B’s continued to slide in the Eastern Conference standings. Entering Wednesday, they will rank no higher than 12th in the east. They began Tuesday’s action only two points behind the Detroit Red Wings for the second wild card spot, but remain behind all their competition in point percentage.
The Bruins scored first with Charlie Coyle’s 15th goal of the season, but it wasn’t long before the Preds answered back — and pulled ahead. Tommy Novak scored his 13th for Nashville just 1:07 after Coyle’s goal, marking the 16th time this season that the Bruins allowed a goal within two minutes after scoring one of their own (via Ty Anderson).
Historical Bruins nemesis Ryan O’Reilly put the Predators on top 2-1 later in the first period, and they carried that lead into the second. The B’s got back to the drawing board just over five minutes into the middle period, when defenseman Jordan Oesterle’s point shot deflected and trickled in.
But recent history would unfortunately repeat itself, as the Preds’ Steven Stamkos scored just 1:17 later to give his team another lead at 3-2. Stamkos came into the game on a 13-game pointless streak, before logging a goal and an assist Tuesday night.
Morgan Geekie tied the game back up 3-3 at the 5:35 mark of the third period. Geekie reached the 20-goal plateau for the first time in his career with the short-range one-timer off a nifty setup by Pavel Zacha.
Unfortunately, the Predators once again would answer quickly. It was more than two minutes later, but less than three, as Jonathan Marchessault finished the tic-tac-toe effort just 2:53 after the Geekie goal. Just 1:03 after that, Nashville took a two-goal lead for the first time on the night with O’Reilly’s second of the night.
In another dubious stat, that marked the 15th time this season that the Bruins surrendered two goals within three minutes or less (again, thank you Ty Anderson). Mark Jankowski added an empty-net goal to truly salt the game away late in the third.
Up Next: The Bruins have to go right back out on the road after the quick stop back in Boston, as they’ll take on the Carolina Hurricanes at Lenovo Center on Thursday night.
Matt Dolloff is a writer and digital content producer for 98.5 The Sports Hub. Read all of his articles here.
