Bruins begin road trip with loss to Golden Knights
Despite the math working against the Bruins, interim head coach Joe Sacco did what he could to put a positive spin ahead of the team’s flight out to Vegas for the start of a five-game road trip. Sacco acknowledged the spot that the Bruins were in, but also noted a ‘run’ would be all the team needed to put themselves back in the thick of things in a tight-as-can-be battle for the second wild card.
The start of that run did not come Thursday night in Vegas, though, as the Bruins were instead served up another heaping serving of cold, harsh reality, this time with a 5-1 loss to the Golden Knights.
Winger Morgan Geekie scored the lone goal for the Black and Gold in this contest, and though it was the 24th marker of Geekie’s obvious breakout 2024-25 campaign, it also came with just 2:11 remaining in the third period and with the Bruins already dug (and buried) in a 5-0 hole.
The loss was Boston’s fourth straight, and their seventh in their last nine games. It’s been even worse than it sounds, too, as with just five wins in their last 19 games overall, the Bruins currently find themselves on their worst 19-game segment since the 2005-06 season.
Now, to lose in Vegas as a visitor is nothing unusual. The Golden Knights have been a top-five home team in the league this season. But for the Bruins, the loss featured the ugly sides of this club that have reared their head at the most inopportune times this season, seemingly without fail.
After skating to a 0-0 draw through 20 minutes of play, the Bruins found themselves dominated in the second period once again, with just four shots thrown on Adin Hill’s cage in the second frame and two goals pummeled through the Bruins’ Jeremy Swayman. And it wouldn’t be a ‘Bruins Special’ of a period without a goal put in their net late in a period, which came with a Pavel Dorofeyev strike scored with just 49 seconds remaining in the period. That marked the 28th time this season that the Bruins had surrendered a goal in the final two minutes of a 20-minute period this season.
And keeping it to just second periods, it’s more downright ugliness for the Bruins. Going back to the second period of last Saturday’s loss to the Lightning, which saw the Bruins outshot 21-0 and outscored 3-0, the Bruins have been outshot 40-8 and outscored 6-0 in their last three second periods.
The Bruins also decided to make some team history (as far as we know it, anyway), with their third straight team outing with fewer than 20 shots landed on goal. That, again, is the first time that’s happened in Bruins history since the league began tracking shots in 1959-60, and overall it’s just the 13th time it’s happened league-wide since the start of the 2005-06 season.
With the Boston loss and with the Canadiens earning a point by way of an overtime loss to the Isles, the Bruins are now five points out of the second wild card in the Eastern Conference, and have played 70 games compared to Montreal’s 68.
The Bruins will get to work with a Saturday night head-to-head with the Sharks in San Jose.
