Bruins victimized by short-handed goal in 3-2 loss to Rangers

Steve Conroy, Boston Herald on Feb 5, 2025

Published in Hockey

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When the Bruins have been at their best lately, they’ve played a simple, defensive game and done their best not to beat themselves.

They got the first part right in Manhattan on Wednesday, but not the second part.

The B’s lost a third-period lead and coughed up the game-winner on a short-handed goal by Chris Kreider, losing to the New York Rangers, 3-2, at Madison Square Garden.

The B’s took a 2-1 lead into the third period but could not hold it after getting jobbed on a penalty call. Brad Marchand bumped goalie Igor Shesterkin, hardly egregious contact. But Marchand being Marchand, he was still called for roughing. In the ensuing scrum, K’Andre Miller pulled Marchand’s helmet off, usually an automatic penalty but only Marchand went to the box.

The B’s had been doing a good job of killing it off. But just as Marchand was stepping out of the box, Vincent Trocheck redirected a Miller shot past Joonas Korpisalo at 5:27 to tie the game.

But when the refs gave the B’s a chance to get it back — calling a penalty on Matt Rempe — it blew up on them. After Morgan Geekie lost control of the puck in the offensive zone, Mika Zibanejad headed up ice and picked up Kreider for a 2-on-1. Zibanejad delivered the puck to Kreider, who waited for Korpisalo to go down and he lifted it over him at 11:54.

With Korpisalo pulled for the extra skater, the B’s had a couple of good chances, but Shesterkin made a good stop on a Nikita Zadorov one-timer from the high slot and then the netminder managed to just stop David Pastrnak’s wraparound attempt.

The first period was a scoreless snoozer. On the first shift of the game, Elias Lindholm drew a penalty on Ryan Lindgren, but the B’s did not even attempt a shot on net.

It was a harbinger of things to come, as they were outshot in the period 8-3. But the B’s had the best scoring chance of the period midway through the stanza. Mason Lohrei sent a great pass down low for Geekie, who had a wide-open net after Shesterkin lost track of him, but he heeled it wide.

Meanwhile, Korpisalo made all the saves that he had to in the first, but the Rangers didn’t exactly test him much, either.

At the start of the second period, it appeared as though the B’s were about to get involved offensively. They spent the better part of the first six minutes of the period in the Ranger end.

But all took was one good forecheck to get the Rangers on the board at 6:07. J.T. Miller hurried Brandon Carlo on a puck retrieval and Carlo’s backhand shovel along the boards was picked off by Zibanejad, who quickly dished to Artemi Panarin for a one-timer goal.

The B’s then flirted with disaster. They took two straight penalties, but did a very good job killing off both, though Korpisalo did have to make one good save on Reilly Smith in tight.

On the shift after the second penalty was up, Matt Poitras turned the puck over at the offensive blue line, resulting in a Matt Rempe breakaway. Korpisalo turned the lanky pugilist’s backhander aside.

The B’s made that save count, striking twice in 16 seconds to take the lead.

First, Pastrnak extended his point streak to 12 games, gathering his own rebound and beating Shesterkin with a fluttering shortside shot through a crowd for his 28th of the season. Charlie McAvoy picked up his 300th career point on the secondary assist.

Then they got some puck luck on the next shift. From the outer edge of the right circle, Lindholm wristed a shot that grazed Adam Fox’s leg and eluded Shesterkin’s glove to give the B’s a 2-1 lead at 15:19. It’s been a terribly slow start offensively for Lindholm in his first Bruins’ season, but that timely tally got him into double digits in goals with his 10th.

Speaking with the TNT crew at the start of the second period, Bruins GM Don Sweeney said he’d like to improve at the trade deadline, but he is still waiting for his team to tell him which direction to take.

“If we have more injuries and we don’t do the job between now and the deadline, we may have to take a different path,” Sweeney said.