The Boston Bruins are mired in a three-game losing skid which is clearly affecting the locker room. With the team hoping to keep their season alive, the Bruins lost at home to the Buffalo Sabres in overtime, by a score of 3-2. After the game, David Pastrnak flipped his lid, delivering a harsh message to the NHL officials.
The Bruins are accustomed to making the Stanley Cup Playoffs year after year. However, as they find themselves on a downward spiral with the postseason slipping away, it’s beginning to take a toll on the team’s mindset.
Boston’s three-game slump has another twist, as every loss has come against divisional opponents, falling to Ottawa, Tampa Bay, and Buffalo. Exactly what Pastrnak and the rest of the team couldn’t afford. Though they managed to secure a point during their OT loss to the Sabres, it felt too little for the Bruins. Especially considering the Sabres languish deadlast in the Atlantic Division, while the ‘Spoked B’ aspire to make the postseason.
The Sabres were awarded a power play with 2:09 left in overtime after a tripping call on Marat Khusnutdinov. During the power play, Bruins goalie Joonas Korpisalo was poked at repeatedly while covering the puck, frustrating the Bruins, who expected a penalty on the Sabres.
However, the refs didn’t blow the whistle, and with 10.7 seconds left, Alex Tuch called game. It was the straw that broke the camel’s back for Pastrnak.
“I felt like if anybody should get a power play in the overtime it should have been us,” Pastrnak said postgame, via Boston.com. “I think they’ve been having power plays the whole game. Yeah, that’s just my opinion. That’s why I was mad. I thought Korpy got slashed, when he covered the puck twice on the power play, and then they could have evened it up, and they decided to look away.“
It takes two to tango
While the referees’ calls could have gone either way during the final frame of the matchup, Pastrnak acknowledged his team’s mistakes that handed the Sabres opportunities on a silver platter.
“So frustrating that they got the power play opportunity in overtime, but at the same time, we made the mistakes on the puck to make it happen. But it’s very frustrating.”
Never-ending story
The Bruins had three man-advantage opportunities during the game, compared to the Sabres’ five. However, the key difference was that the visiting team capitalized on their power plays, converting in 40% of their chances. Boston, on the other hand, remained scoreless on the power play, even failing to convert a 5-on-3 opportunity in the opening period.
It’s been a recurring issue throughout the 2024-25 NHL season for Joe Sacco’s Bruins, who rank as the fourth-worst power play unit in the league with a subpar 14.9% conversion rate. The Sabres haven’t fared much better, operating at 17.9% on the man advantage this season. However, based on their latest meeting, it would have been hard to tell.