Bruins Notes: Rangers Flipped Script From Questionable Boston Penalty

The Boston Bruins made the most of minimal opportunities to hold a 2-1 lead through 40 minutes against the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday night.

Boston killed off multiple penalties in the second period and erased a 1-0 deficit when David Pastrnak and Elias Lindholm scored 16 seconds apart. The Bruins had momentum before one penalty allowed the Rangers to reset the pace of the game.

Brad Marchand made contact with goaltender Igor Shesterkin, which sparked a roughing penalty. The Bruins captain appeared rather upset on the ice, not for his own call, but for the absence of a matching penalty when he had his helmet pulled off.

“I was just questioning about when a guy pulls your helmet off, it’s an automatic penalty,” Marchand told reporters. “I was just curious why (that wasn’t called). … Obviously, I hit the goalie. That’s a penalty. I wasn’t upset about that. I knew it was a penalty. It was more that that’s an automatic call. I don’t know why it wasn’t call.”

Boston did kill off that penalty, but the Rangers netted the tying goal when Vincent Trocheck redirected a pass from K’Andre Miller into the back of the net just as Marchand stepped back on the ice from out of the box. New York then restored the lead when Chris Kreider beat Joonas Korpisalo off a 2-on-1 attack with the Rangers shorthanded six minutes later in an eventual 3-2 win over Boston.

“That was a nice pass, went all the way across,” Korpisalo told reporters. “I was a little bit late there.”

New York blitzed the Bruins with hustle and pace on each of their goals on the night. Boston fought through the back-to-back aspect of the schedule but faltered in the fallout of the Marchand penalty.

“It was our own doing, we were undisciplined,” Pastrnak told reporters. “Got scored on again on the power play. Those are the two things that bite you in this league. We didn’t have our A-game today. We were up 2-1 after two periods somehow thanks to Korpi. Just gotta be better.”

Boston dropped the penultimate game before the league pauses for two weeks.

Here are more notes from Wednesday’s Bruins-Rangers game:

— New York improved to 2-1 and 2-0 at home in the season series against the Bruins. The home team won every game in the series thus far.

— David Pastrnak netted his 28th goal of the season that extended his point streak to 12 games.

— Boston entered the game 4-0-1 in the second game of a back-to-back this season. The Rangers handed the Bruins their first regulation loss in that stretch.

— The Bruins fell to just 9-15-3 on the road with just 21 points coming away from TD Garden.

“We have to be better on the road,” Pastrnak said. “We have to look up because it’s not going our way on the road trip. I don’t know what’s the problem. Definitely need to be better on the road because we need every point we can get.”

— The Bruins play one more contest prior to the two-week break for the 4 Nations Face-Off. Boston hosts the Vegas Golden Knights for a Saturday matinee at TD Garden. Puck drop is set for 3:30 p.m. ET. You can catch the game on ABC.