After Tuesday night’s game, there was a surprising sense of optimism surrounding a Bruins team that had seemed directionless.
In a season marked by underperformance, with the Bruins often appearing disengaged, a .500 roster finally showed some fight in St. Louis — coming back from a two-goal deficit in the third period to secure a hard-earned win in regulation.
The Bruins have struggled throughout the 2024-25 season, dealing with issues like a lack of scoring, a rash of injuries, and significant regression in key areas like defense, the power play, and goaltending.
But after their hard-fought win, the Bruins appeared to have gained some momentum heading into Thursday’s road game against the Dallas Stars.
“We have to understand that just because we had a good game last time, or did some things well, we can’t take our foot off the gas,” Brad Marchand said Thursday morning. “We need to keep the same mentality we had in the third period of the last game. Every detail in our structure matters, and we can’t deviate from it when things don’t go our way.”
However, any hope of building on that momentum quickly vanished on Thursday night.
Following their most promising victory of the season, the Bruins were dismantled 7-2 by the Stars in Dallas.
The same issues that plagued them earlier in the season resurfaced on the road, with poor defensive zone coverage, soft puck battles, and a lack of execution leading to another lopsided loss for Jim Montgomery’s team.
“We lost every battle. Soft on the puck, soft everywhere,” Nikita Zadorov said after the game. “We didn’t finish checks. We just got embarrassed.”
The Bruins were unable to capitalize on two more power-play opportunities against Dallas, with their league-worst power play now a dismal 8-for-70 on the season.
Fortunately, Boston’s penalty kill, ranked 26th in the league, wasn’t tested until garbage time in the third period, but it did little to slow down the Stars, who had little trouble breaking through the Bruins’ defensive resistance.
Goaltender Jeremy Swayman, fresh off signing an eight-year, $66 million deal in October, was beaten for seven goals on 38 shots, dropping his save percentage to just .888 on the season.
Meanwhile, the Bruins’ defense repeatedly allowed Dallas high-quality scoring chances, including on the Stars’ fourth goal — the result of a failed breakout pass from Zadorov, a lost puck battle by Pavel Zacha in the neutral zone, and a misread by Swayman on a chip shot.
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