BOSTON — The Bruins failed to earn a point in their season-opening three-game homestand, finishing it with a loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning in Monday’s Columbus Day matinee.
The 6-3 defeat marked the second time this season Boston had surrendered six goals in a game, and it also snapped a 10-game Tampa Bay losing streak at TD Garden that dated to 2010.
The Bruins now will head west for dates with the Colorado Avalanche and Arizona Coyotes. But before you catch up on sleep in preparation for two 10 p.m. ET puck drops, let’s take a spin through some final notes from Monday.
— Defense again was an issue for Boston against the reigning Eastern Conference champs, but the B’s did show noticeable improvement in one area: the power play. The Bruins capitalized on three of their four man-advantage opportunities, a positive sign for a team that ranked 27th in the NHL in power-play goals last season.
David Krejci scored the first goal, and Loui Eriksson provided the final two, with Torey Krug assisting on all three.
“Definitely, the power play was good (Monday),” head coach Claude Julien said. “I thought (the Lightning) had been a tough team to penetrate, and I thought our guys did a good job of getting some speed through the neutral zone, putting pucks behind them, getting in on the forecheck. I think our game offensively was good, so there’s a lot of things I can take out of this game. But we go back to the same old topic again: can’t allow five, six goals a game and expect to be successful. We’ve got to be a little bit better from the blue line in.”
— Boston’s one unsuccessful power play ended in disastrous fashion. Just as a Lightning penalty expired, Brian Boyle stole the puck from David Pastrnak and then steamrolled past the 19-year-old en route to his second goal of the game.
The 6-foot, 181-pound Pastrnak simply stood no chance against the 6-foot-7, 243-pound Boyle. But while acknowledging the young winger’s mistake after the game, Julien also praised the work ethic he’s displayed thus far.
“This is from a guy that’s been really good for us,” the coach said, “so this is not necessarily critiquing Pasta, because if everyone was playing as hard as he is right now, we’d probably have better success. But we have to get better in those areas. It’s one mistake after another. A lot of it is ourselves shooting ourselves in the foot.”
— Boyle, a native of Hingham, Mass., had never scored a goal in 21 games against his hometown team entering Monday. He scored two this time — his first two-goal game since Nov. 9, 2010.
—Â Steven Stamkos netted the eventual game-winning goal for the Lightning — and reached the 500-point plateau in the process.Â
“It’s special,” the 25-year-old center said. “I mean, talked about it during the intermission that you really never know how much opportunity, or how long you’re going to be around in the league. So to get 500 points, I think I’m very fortunate. You think about all the people who helped you along the way to get to this point, and to do it in a game where it was a big goal at the time, in this building where I’ve had some ups and downs, I guess another positive one in here.”
Stamkos reached the milestone in just 495 games, making him the fifth-fastest to reach 500 behind Sidney Crosby (369), Alexander Ovechkin (373), Evgeni Malkin (413) and Jaromir Jagr (419).
— Bruins defenseman Matt Irwin cleared waivers Monday and was assigned to the team’s AHL affiliate in Providence.
Thumbnail photo via Winslow Townson/USA TODAY Sports Images
