The Bruins' struggles were amplified further on Thursday night at the TD Garden, when they claimed two one-goal leads only to squander both of them and drop a 3-2 contest to the lowly Columbus Blue Jackets.
Michael Ryder put the Bruins on the board first with his 12th tally of the season just two-plus minutes into the action, but Columbus' Chris Clark knotted the score 10 minutes later. Boston once again took the lead on a Patrice Bergeron goal in the second but couldn't hold on through the third, as the Blue Jackets' Antoine Vermette pulled Columbus back into a tie.
R.J. Umberger then scored the deciding goal on a power play late in the third following a very questionable penalty.
Bruins netminder Tuukka Rask finished with 22 saves on 25 shots, while struggling Blue Jackets goaltender Steve Mason stopped 32 of 34 shots.
The B's have lost 6 of 7 games, going 1-5-1 in that span.
Blue Jackets 3, Bruins 2
TD Garden, Boston, Mass.
Jan. 21, 2009
Headliner: With the score knotted at 2 and just over a minute remaining in the game, R.J. Umberger won a faceoff in the offensive zone against Trent Whitfield and promptly scored on a power play to lift the Blue Jackets into the lead and carry them to a big come-from-behind road win over Boston.
Antoine Vermette scored for Columbus in the second period to erase a one-goal deficit and had another tally called back earlier via instant replay.
Grinder: Where has Michael Ryder been hiding all season? The Bruins winger, who struggled to find his offense throughout much of the first half, is suddenly heating up, registering goals in two of his last three games and helping compensate for the conspicuous absence of some of Boston's top scorers.
Ryder's goal two minutes into Thursday's contest put the Bruins on the board and was his 12th of the season. Whitfield fed the puck to a streaking Ryder, earning the assist and his first point of the season.
Columbus' Mason, last year's Rookie of the Year, has had trouble matching his 2008-09 performance, but he sure recaptured his old form on Thursday, as he saved 32 of 34 shots in earning the win for the Blue Jackets.
Weak Link: It's been a rough week — and season — for blue liner Dennis Wideman. The defenseman has posted a minus-8 rating in 2009-10 and was called out this week by head coach Claude Julien, who said the Bruins will need a far better performance from Wideman in order to find their stride.
Unfortunately, Wideman didn't do much to impress Julien on Thursday, as his turnover in the Boston zone in the first period led to Chris Clark's game-tying goal. To make matters worse, in the second period, he tripped up teammate Blake Wheeler and sent him careening into the boards.
Key Moment: During a scrum in front of the Columbus goal with under two minutes remaining in regulation, Milan Lucic was whistled for a questionable high-sticking penalty in which it appeared that Blue Jacket Derick Brassard was hit in the face. Replays showed it was a Columbus player's stick that hit Brassard, but Lucic was still sent to the box for four minutes.
It didn't take long for the unlucky call to bite Boston. Just 15 seconds into the power play, Umberger broke the deadlock and put Columbus on top to stay.
What's Next: The Bruins hit the ice for a Saturday matinee against the Senators, their second meeting with Ottawa this week.
Monday's 5-1 loss to the Sens was ugly on all fronts. Patrice Bergeron returned to the ice and played for the B's for the first time since breaking his thumb over two weeks ago, but that didn't seem to help Boston, which struggled to score and couldn't keep Ottawa off the scoreboard. Tim Thomas started in net but was pulled after letting Ottawa score on two of its first three shots and giving up his third goal in the middle of the second period.
The Sens stand in between Boston and the Northeast Division's first-place Sabres, so grabbing some points against Ottawa, to borrow a line from Tiger Woods, would be huge. Especially when you're in the midst of a 1-5-1 skid.
