A slow start, penalties, and self-inflicted wounds did in the Bruins, and they may have also lost center Mark Kastelic to an injury.
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TAMPA — This one got ugly.
In the waning moments of the Bruins 4-1 loss to the Lightning at Amalie Arena Thursday night, they may have lost Mark Kastelic, arguably one of the team’s most underrated players and a spark plug all year, to a vicious cross-check to the face from Emil Lilleberg.
With the game already decided, Kastelic went to finish a check on the Tampa Bay defenseman, who led with a two-hander to the Bruins’ forward’s chin. The two fought, but it was clear Kastelic was at a disadvantage. Lilleberg was given a cross-checking major and a game misconduct.
“It was a pretty cheap cross-check, I thought,” said Boston winger Morgan Geekie. “Obviously we’re not too happy about that.”
There wasn’t a ton to be happy about for the Bruins, who lost their sixth straight game and next will visit the reigning Stanley Cup champion Panthers for a Saturday matinee.
“Right now, they’re not feeling great about themselves, and neither are we [as coaches],” said Joe Sacco. “No one wants to lose in this league. You’re in this profession, in this business, to win hockey games and get results. So, we’re not getting them right now.”
“It’s a good hockey game. We killed off some penalties early in the game. We kept ourselves in it. The power play, we give up a shorthanded goal, and that certainly takes a lot of wind out of your sails, but we’re still in the game. It’s only 1-0,” said Sacco, who is 12-10-2 since taking over. “And then we give up one last minute of the period. That’s not a good recipe for success. Those goals, they are pretty much gift goals, but that’s on us.”
Slow starts, playing from behind, and blunders at bad times have been consistent bugaboos during this stretch.
“We’re shooting ourselves in the foot time and time again. I feel like lots of these mistakes are kind of self-appointed,” said Geekie. “But yeah, I mean we’ve got to figure out in this room, and we’ve got guys that can do that. I know I believe in each and every one of the guys in this room and it’s something that we’ve got to figure out. Our coaching staff is giving us all the tools and systems and it’s on us to execute and that’s what we haven’t been doing. So, we’ve got to learn to build our game from the start of the first puck drop and play a full 60.”
The third period surge buoyed the mood in the locker room as the club looks for answers to stop the swoon.
“You dig in,” said Swayman, when asked how to snap out of it. “We haven’t had this adversity before, at least in my tenure here. And what an opportunity and that’s the way we have to look at it. We have each other’s backs and that’s one thing I know we won’t lose in this room is having each other’s backs and the last two seconds of the game isn’t going to go unnoticed.”
The clubs square off again Tuesday in Boston.