After winning back-to-back games against teams in the playoff picture, the Boston Bruins dropped a dispassionate game to the lowly Buffalo Sabres at KeyBank Center on Tuesday night.
Bruins interim head coach Joe Sacco didn’t mince words when he met with the media following Boston’s 7-2 lopsided loss.
“Just the way we managed the game tonight. I didn’t like the way we managed it,” Sacco said. “You’re going to make mistakes in hockey that happen in the course of a game, but it’s how we respond right after those mistakes.
“I felt like tonight, be it turnovers in the offensive zone and then not coming back into our D zone sorting out our coverage, some poor line changes. Obviously, not a good response. A couple of goals that we scored, they come out, and they respond right away. We have to be better than that, that next shift. So, I would say game management was the most disappointing thing here tonight.”
The Bruins opened the scoring on Mason Lohrei’s third goal of the season in the first period, but Tage Thompson got the equalizer less than a minute later. Buffalo would add three more goals for a 4-1 lead early in the final frame.
Story continues below advertisement
“You have to respect your opponent, especially offensively,” Sacco said. “They have a good blue line, very mobile. They have some dangerous forwards, as we saw here tonight. We just weren’t good enough.
“I was looking for a physical pushback after they scored three, four in a row there. Physical means playing hard on the puck, playing hard without the puck. I think it’s both. We weren’t good enough in those areas tonight on the puck or away from the puck.”
Here are more notes from Tuesday’s Bruins-Sabres game:
— The Bruins allowed six or more goals for the sixth time this season. Jeremy Swayman was between the pipes for four of those contests.
Story continues below advertisement
The Boston goaltender took the blame for the loss despite the Bruins being shorthanded on the blue line.
“I think not giving my team a chance to win. I take pride in that every night and I could have had a couple more saves that would have kept the game closer, and that’s something that I need to work on, and I will,” Swayman told reporters in KeyBank Center. “Everyone in this room knows that and I know that everyone in this room is going to do the same for their game. That’s what we have that not a lot of teams don’t, and we can take pride in that.”
— David Pastrnak extended his point streak to eight games with a secondary assist on Brad Marchand’s third-period power-play goal. The Bruins’ leading scorer has seven goals and 11 assists in that span.
— Thompson and JJ Peterka both recorded hat tricks for the Sabres, the first time two Buffalo players tallied three goals each since 2008. It was the first time the Bruins had surrendered multiple hat tricks in the same game since Eric Daze and Steve Sullivan each recorded three goals for the Blackhawks on Mar. 9, 2003.
Story continues below advertisement
— The Bruins fell to 9-14-3 on the road, 9-6-2 against Atlantic Division opponents, 14-14-3 against Eastern Conference teams and 25-21-6 over all. They hold a one-point advantage over the Tampa Bay Lightning and Columbus Blue Jackets in the Wild Card race.
— Boston begins a three-game homestand beginning against the Winnipeg Jets on Thursday night. Puck drop from TD Garden at 7 p.m. ET on NESN, following an hour of pregame coverage.
Featured image via Timothy T. Ludwig/Imagn Images