Bruins drop 10th straight with loss to Canadiens

In the basement of the Eastern Conference in April for the first time in nearly 30 years, Thursday night saw the Bruins get cozy at the bottom, with a 4-1 loss to the Canadiens at the Bell Centre.

The defeat marked the Black and Gold's 10th straight defeat, putting the Bruins on their first winless stretch of at least 10 games since 2010, and just their fourth since 1976.

Playing to a scoreless draw through 20 minutes of play, the Bruins were put in a 2-0 hole in the middle frame with strikes from Christian Dvorak and Cole Caufield.

The Montreal goals were sandwiched around a plethora of absolutely dazzling stops from Jeremy Swayman, but those stops failed to galvanize the Bruins with any sort of push the other, and the Bruins ended the middle frame with just two shots on goal compared to the 17 that the Canadiens landed on goal in the period.

A giveaway to Brendan Gallagher early in the third period allowed the Canadiens to push their lead out to three, and though the Bruins finally countered with an Elias Lindholm marker, the damage was already done against a relatively punchless Bruins attack.

With the goal, Lindholm bumped his way up to 39 points on the season, moving him out of a tie with David Backes (2016-17) and into a deadlock with Morgan Geekie (2023-24) for the most second-most points by any Don Sweeney UFA signing. (Erik Haula leads the way on that front, in case you're curious, with 44 points in his first and only season with the Bruins.)

In goal, Swayman took the loss behind a 28-of-31 performance in the B's crease.

And with the loss, the Bruins saw a 16-game point streak against the Canadiens come to an end, with Thursday's result marking the first regulation loss to Montreal since Nov. 5, 2019.

The Bruins will return to Boston for a Saturday night showdown with the Hurricanes.