Trailing the Wild 3-1 in the third period Saturday night in Minnesota, the Bruins got an opportunity to jumpstart a comeback when a Daemon Hunt delay of game penalty put them on the power play with 11:11 to go.
They didn’t even come close to taking advantage. Sloppy turnovers from David Pastrnak and Elias Lindholm – the latter of which led to a shorthanded breakaway – prompted coach Marco Sturm to pull his top unit off the ice after just 35 seconds. The second unit at least created one quality look when JJ Peterka set up Fraser Minten in the slot, but they still couldn’t break through.
Less than a minute after that power play ended, the Wild took another penalty when Jared Spurgeon tripped Morgan Geekie, giving the Bruins’ top guys a chance to immediately make amends.
This power play looked better, with the top unit creating a couple good looks for Lindholm and then Geekie, but they still couldn’t score. While there were still six minutes left after that Minnesota kill, that was essentially Boston’s last gasp. Kirill Kaprizov scored his second goal of the game on an empty net to seal the 4-1 final and hand the Bruins their first loss of the season.
This one was almost entirely decided by special teams, with those two third-period power plays providing the punctuation mark on an area that has been a major problem for the Bruins through three games.
After Saturday, the Bruins are now 0-for-6 on the man advantage for the season. Sturm and assistant coach Steve Spott have yet to find a five-man unit they want to stick with. The season started with Hampus Lindholm quarterbacking the top unit, but now it’s Mason Lohrei in that spot.
Elias Lindholm moving to the top unit was another change Saturday, one that was likely made for two reasons. One: The Bruins were losing too many faceoffs to start power plays, and Lindholm is their best faceoff man. Two: Geekie was struggling to get involved playing the bumper position, so Lindholm sliding into the middle allows Geekie to move back to the flank. The trade-off is that it bumped Peterka, arguably their best guy on zone entries, off the top unit completely.
Again, the Bruins just haven’t figured out how this puzzle fits together yet. The return of Charlie McAvoy, who improved as a power-play quarterback last season, should help at least a little bit, but that’s still four games away. The Bruins would prefer to get on track before then.
On the flip side of the special teams coin, the Wild scored twice on the power play Saturday. The first goal tied the game at 1-1, and came right after the Bruins failed to capitalize on their first power play of the night.
Michael DiPietro, making his first start as a Bruin, was partially at fault on that one, as he came out to play the puck but seemed unable to decide what to do with it. He ended up just flipping it to the corner for a turnover, which forced the Boston penalty kill into scramble mode. Kaprizov, one of the game’s most dangerous players, wound up being left wide open to bury a feed from Maxim Shabanov.
On the second goal, Nikita Zadorov and Connor Clifton got called for stick fouls just eight seconds apart, handing Minnesota an extended 5-on-3. The Bruins actually killed off all 1:52 of that, but then Quinn Hughes scored during the remaining eight seconds of power-play time to give the Wild a 2-1 lead. The Bruins’ penalty kill is now just 4-for-7 (57.1%) on the season.
“Probably special teams,” Sturm said on NESN when asked what the difference was Saturday. “We had a great first period. One of the best periods we’ve played in a while. The 5-on-5 was good. We did exactly what we wanted. … I would say special teams was the difference.”
Of the two units, there might be a little more optimism for the power play given that the Bruins did finish top 10 in the NHL last season, and that Spott is one of the more well-respected power-play gurus in the league.
The penalty kill, however, was a problem throughout last season, ending the year ranked 24th in the league. It’s an area where the Bruins really need to be much better this season, but this hasn’t been an encouraging start.
The Bruins won’t have much time to practice anything before their next game. They’re off on Sunday as they travel back to Boston, and then they’re back to game action Monday night when they host the Ottawa Senators.
