Bruins Lose 5-1 to Golden Knights

The Bruins lost to the Vegas Golden Knights 5-1 and looked awful doing it. The Bruins gell behind 5-0 before netting their first and only goal of the game in the 3rd period. Pavel Dorofeyev scored three times for his second career hat trick. The loss was the Bruins 4th in a row.

Headlines:

Tale of 2 Goaltenders: Bruins netminder Jeremy Swayman made several spectacular saves but has a few he’s like back. He allowed 5 goals on 30 shots as was a -1.79 goals against expected according to moneypuck.com. His counterpart Adin Hill, wasn’t tested much facing only 19 shots from the floundering Bruins offense but did come up with several big stops. Swayman has really struggled of late allowing more than 5 goals in each of his last three games. Swayman’s nightmare season continues after the Bruins made him one of the highest paid goaltenders this season following a lengthy hold out. His 3.04 GAA is ranked 43rd in the NHL among qualified goaltenders and his save percentage (.896) ranks him tied for 36th with teammate Joonas Korpisalo.

On second though: The Bruins second period woes continued. The Bruins kept pace with the Golden Knights in the first period, matching them in shots, hits, and entered the second period scoreless. But things unraveled from there. The Bruins gave up two goals in the second period have now been outscored 6-0 and outshot 40-8 in the second period over their last 3 games.

Pavel Dorofeyev Hat Trick: Pavel Dorofeyev lit the lamp three times in the Vegas win for his second career hat trick.

Turning Point:

Despite being out shot 10-4 in the second, the Bruins were close to escaping the period only down a goal. But they conceded a goal to Dorofeyev (his second of the game) with just 50 seconds remaining in the second period, making the score at the time 2-0 Vegas. It was the 28th time this season the Bruins have allowed a goal in the last two minutes of a period.

“That’s something that shouldn’t happen. We lose a face off, they make a play, we lose our assignment and it’s in the back of our net,” Sacco told the Boston Globe after the game. “But that’s hockey, you’re not going to be up every game. You’re going to be down at certain points during the course of the game and we just weren’t able to sustain any momentum in the third.”

Things I Liked:

• Strong First Period: The Bruins kept pace with the Knights for the first 20 minutes and half of the second. Then things fell apart.
• Geekie Stays Hot: Morgan Geekie stayed hot scoring his 24th goal of the season.

Things I Didn’t Like:

• Zadorov Penalty: Boston’s Nikita Zadorov took a slashing penalty 8:15 into the second period which led to the Knights first goal. The penalty was Zadorov’s 35th minor of the season, second most in the NHL.
• Power Outage: Not only did the Bruins muster only 20 shots but they only managed to generate one power play. Given their 5 on 5 struggles on offense, one power play in a game is not ideal.

Empty Netters:

• With an assist David Pastrnak picked up his 84th point of the season good for 6th in the NHL.
• Henri Jokiharju led the team in minutes played and recorded a 0 on the +/-.
• Bruins won 59.3% of the faceoffs, which is an oddity for them this season as they have been dominated on the dots all season.