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Talking Points: Boston Bruins Suffer Another Humbling NY Loss

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Bruins Trade Target Chris Kreider

Here are the Talking Points from the Boston Bruins 6-2 loss to the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden on Friday night.

GOLD STAR: Ryan Strome was one of a number of Rangers with excellent performances on Friday night as he scored one of the early goals after finishing off No. 1 overall pick Alexis Lafreniere’s first career NHL assist. He finished with a goal and three points along with a plus-2 rating with 16:12 of ice time with five shots on net, and really took advantage of the B’s disarray on defense right now. Beyond Strome it was a couple of local boys in Colin Blackwell and Chris Kreider doing the damage for the Rangers, as the twosome combined to score two goals in 12 seconds. But in general, the Rangers brought their “A” game even though they’re missing Artemi Panarin and Jacob Trouba, and the Bruins brought the opposite while also missing a number of significant players to injuries right now.

BLACK EYE: John Moore is a minus-4 the last couple of games as the Boston Bruins are getting blown out, the defensive side of things is in chaos and the back end is clearly playing shorthanded while missing a regular from each one of their pairings. Moore is clearly not alone as Urho Vaakanainen was overpowered around the net at points, and Connor Clifton didn’t have a very good game on the back end either. But it certainly goes beyond the defensemen as the Bruins fourth line got torched for the second game in a row as well as Anders Bjork, Sean Kuraly and Chris Wagner all finished with a minus-2 rating after being minus players on Thursday night against the Islanders as well. The Bruins need more out of their middle tier players and they’re not getting it right now as they’re getting kicked around by the New York teams.

TURNING POINT: It was a 2-1 manageable game in the second period for the Bruins after a rough start, but things began to get awry once Nick Ritchie was whistled for a soft tripping penalty in the offensive zone. The Rangers scored a power play goal in the opening seconds of the possession when Colin Blackwell tipped an Adam Fox point shot, and then Chris Kreider scored again 12 seconds later to make it a 4-1 game. Once the Rangers got to that point, it just got worse as they allowed a couple more goals in the third period and really gave up again for the second consecutive game. The Bruins need to figure things out and make sure they don’t cave in competitively once things start to go away from them.

HONORABLE MENTION: Brad Marchand finished with a milestone goal in the third period that really stopped the bleeding, and he set the tone early when he tangled with Adam Fox in the first period on their first shift of the game. Unfortunately, none of the other Bruins players responded and followed Marchand’s late in a sleepy first period. Then it was Marchand in the second period that responded by tangling with Ryan Lindgren when he took a run at Patrice Bergeron front of the benches, and at least temporarily seemed to snap the Bruins out of their funk. Unfortunately for Marchand and Co., however, they couldn’t sustain the emotion and follow his lead for the rest of the game.

BY THE NUMBERS: 300 – the number of career NHL goals for Brad Marchand after his third period strike stopped the bleeding for the Black and Gold. He’s just the seventh player in Boston Bruins history to hit the triple century mark.

QUOTE TO NOTE: “This doesn’t happen here and it can’t go on any further than this…this is definitely unacceptable.” –Brandon Carlo on the state of the Bruins after a 6-2 loss and getting outscored 11-2 in their last four periods of play.

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