The Boston Bruins left Rexall Place with a point Wednesday night. But given who their opponent was, that result was cause for frustration rather than celebration.
The Bruins opened their three-game Western Conference road trip with a 3-2 shootout loss to the Edmonton Oilers, a team that had won just eight of its first 25 games and resided at the very bottom of the Western Conference standings.
The loss, which snapped a five-game Bruins winning streak, featured long stretches of sloppy and uninspired play as Boston played down to the level of the talented but less seasoned Edmonton skaters.
“I thought we were skating, but I don’t think we were finishing our checks,” center David Krejci told reporters after the game, as aired on “Bruins Overtime LIVE.” “… We were skating, but we’ve got to play skilled teams like that a little harder.”
A blown line change during a second-period power play led to the Oilers’ first goal, and an off-target pass by Ryan Spooner initiated a rush that produced Edmonton’s second. Boston rallied to tie the game on both occasions, but it wasn’t until Zdeno Chara scored with 3:21 remaining in regulation that the Bruins’ usual brand of physical hockey made its return.
Chara’s late tally saved the Bruins from perhaps their most ignominious outcome of the season, but against a last-place team like the Oilers, they knew it should not have been necessary.
“I don’t think you want to make that a habit, that you’re down one goal and then all of a sudden you start playing like you should have been right off the bat,” goalie Tuukka Rask told reporters, via The Boston Globe. “So, that’s been the case a few times here. I think we have to fix that. You want to be the team ahead, not the team chasing all the time.”
Rask finished with 34 saves in a losing effort and held Edmonton scoreless on all five of its power plays, including one in overtime.
The Bruins were able to ride strong goaltending to thrilling wins over the Toronto Maple Leafs (4-3 in a shootout) and Detroit Red Wings (3-2 in overtime) last week, but even another stellar showing by Rask was not enough to bail them out this time around.
Head coach Claude Julien said he wouldn’t categorize his team’s effort as “soft,” but he stressed in a postgame interview with NESN’s Jack Edwards and Andy Brickley that it lacked the necessary intensity.
“We just felt that throughout the whole game, we were playing a dangerous game,” Julien said. “Our skating game was there (Wednesday night), but we had to play a harder game than we did (Wednesday night), and we didn’t. We chose to try and match their skill. And once we tied the game at 2-2, all of the sudden we started playing our game, and we became a dominant team.
“So, I’m disappointed in the fact that we only got one point when we certainly could have had two.”
Boston will have a chance to rebound Friday night against an equally beatable opponent, as the Calgary Flames enter Thursday tied with the Oilers for the fewest points in the West.
Thumbnail photo Perry Nelson/USA TODAY Sports Images
