Mammoth hand Bruins 4th straight loss

Not even David Pastrnak putting his superman cape back on could prevent the Bruins from their fourth straight defeat Sunday night, as the Bruins dropped to 3-4-0 on the year behind a 3-2 loss to the Mammoth out in Utah.

The Black and Gold's latest setback featured a bit of everything that's been haunting them for the last week, too.

Down in an 0-1 hole behind Logan Cooley's power-play goal off his back and in, the Bruins responded with back-to-back goals from Pastrnak, and looked poised to carry a lead into the intermission. But with the sides at four-on-four, an Ian Cole pick on the Bruins' Henri Jokiharju helped open things up for a 2-on-1 look, buried the Mammoth's Clayton Keller at the 15:57 mark of the middle frame.

The Keller goal marked Boston's fourth blown lead of the three-game road trip, though it was also their longest lead, with the Bruins holding a 2-1 edge for 10:10 before Keller knotted things back up.

Keller's goal was especially painful for the Bruins when looking at the chances the Bruins had to extend their lead prior to that goal, headlined by a partial break for the Bruins' Fraser Minten and a second-chance look from Tanner Jeannot.

Later in the game, Jeannot and Minten hooked up one again, this time on a 2-on-1. But the Bruins failed to get anything out of that opportunity, as the puck appeared to hop over Minten's stick, and the chance died without a shot on Vitek Vanecek.

And, naturally, it would come back to bite 'em.

Deadlocked at 2-2 in the middle of the third period, the Bruins' Marat Khusnutdinov had his pocket picked in the defensive zone by JJ Peterka, who fed a ready-and-waiting Dylan Guenther for a one-time blast through Boston goaltender Joonas Korpisalo for a 3-2 Utah lead.

It felt like ballgame. And it was ballgame.

Held to just three shots on goal in the third period of play, the chances weren't there for the B's in the final 20 minutes of play. And the one chance they did get (a power-play chance to bring the game back even with 5:09 left in the game) was squandered without much of anything from the B's offense.

That marked the fourth straight game where the Bruins failed to convert on a third-period power-play opportunity with a chance to tie the game.

In goal, Korpisalo did everything he could to will the Bruins to victory, but took a hard-luck loss with a 24-of-27 performance in the Boston net.

Elsewhere on the roster, the Bruins healthy scratched Casey Mittelstadt, while Hampus Lindholm was held out of this contest in what feels like load management after he played over 20 minutes in his return to the lineup on Saturday night.

The Bruins will be off on Monday and get back to work Tuesday night against Brad Marchand and the Panthers at TD Garden. This will be Marchand's first game back in Boston and in the lineup for the Panthers since being traded to Florida at the 2025 NHL trade deadline.