Bruins hammered for seven goals in blowout loss to Kings
The Bruins could not have asked for a better start to Sunday’s contest in Los Angeles.
Given more time and space than he could’ve ever asked for, the Bruins’ Elias Lindholm received a Cole Koepke pass right in the slot, juked the Kings’ Darcy Kuemper to the left, and tucked home a goal on Boston’s first shot of the evening just 19 seconds into the game.
But the hot start failed to matter, as the Kings scored six of the next seven goals that followed in this contest, and downed the Bruins by a 7-2 final at Crypto.com Arena.
LA’s barrage on Jeremy Swayman kicked off early, as Anze Kopitar matched Lindholm’s goal on the first Kings shot of the evening just two and a half minutes after Lindholm’s tally, and put an exclamation point on a shot-heavy first period with a Warren Foegele goal scored with 29 seconds remaining in the frame. It marked the 29th time this season that the Bruins allowed a goal in the final two minutes of a period.
The Bruins managed to knot things up on their first shot of the second period, too, this time with Morgan Geekie and his 25th goal of the campaign. But the Geekie strike would serve as the Black and Gold’s lone production of the period (and perhaps their only five-on-five chance of the frame), while the Kings pushed their lead out to two behind second-period tallies from Drew Doughty and Andrei Kuzmenko.
And with the club already down by two entering the third period of play, it didn’t take long for the wheels to fall off for the Bruins on the way to yet another blowout loss.
A tally from Quinton Byfield at the 4:05 mark pushed the Los Angeles lead out to three, while tallies from Tanner Jeannot and Samuel Helenius made things an absolute laugher. All the while, the Bruins mustered just a single shot on Kuemper and the Kings in the third period of play.
Swayman finished the outing with seven goals on 23 shots faced. The beatdown marked the fifth time this season that Swayman has allowed at least six goals in a game this season, which is the most since Bill Ranford had five outings of at least six goals against during the 1996-97 season.
As a team, it’s the 12th time this season that the Bruins allowed at least six goals in a game, which is the most such games for the Black and Gold since having 12 of those games during the 2006-07 season.
And with the loss, Boston’s winless skid has now hit six games (0-5-1). It’s their second winless slide of six straight games this season, making them one of just five teams to go through that on two separate occasions this season, joining a ‘club’ also featuring the Sabres, Blue Jackets, Predators, and Sharks.
After a back-to-back over the weekend, Joe Sacco and the Bruins will have two days off in California before they return to action Wednesday night against the Ducks. The Ducks beat the Bruins in overtime in a showdown at TD Garden back on Feb. 22.
