Marchand On Bruins’ Loss: ‘We Took Them Lightly’

BOSTON – The Boston Bruins were coming off an intense weekend of hockey against the Tampa Bay Lightning and Carolina Hurricanes, and they were riding a seven-game win streak headed into Tuesday night’s game against the Nashville Predators.

The Predators were an understandably emotional group reeling from the horrific school shooting at the Covenant School earlier this week. They were also undermanned on the ice with injuries at all kinds of key spots that left a Preds lineup that was pretty unrecognizable from even a couple of seasons ago, so Nashville was playing with boundless energy and emotion.

It all added up to the Boston Bruins playing a flat game in a 2-1 loss to the Predators where they didn’t really get things into gear until the third period, and in the words of their coach “laid an egg” for one of the few times during this regular season.

They missed nets with quality scoring chances around the net, couldn’t cleanly make or complete simple passes and didn’t win enough of the battles in close around the offensive zone. On the power play, the Bruins went 0-for-5 with just five shots on net and lacked the worth ethic and killer instinct to help out at all. It led to the Boston Bruins being pretty accurate with their assessment of what just happened on the ice after it was all over on Tuesday night.

“We obviously took them lightly. We seem to get up for the games [against the] teams that we could potentially face down the road,” said Boston Bruins winger Brad Marchand, after the B’s played hotly contested and intense games while beating the Lightning and Hurricanes over the weekend. “I think we were just a little disrespectful of the game tonight against this team, and I think definitely fatigue comes into it.

“But we’re going to run into situations where we are tired moving forward and we still need to be able to show up. It is what it is. Learn from it and move on.”

🎥 Coach Montgomery, Linus Ullmark, Brad Marchand, and Patrice Bergeron react following the #NHLBruins 2-1 loss to the Nashville Predators at TD Garden: pic.twitter.com/UxnvExsYel

— y – Boston Bruins (@NHLBruins) March 29, 2023

Certainly, the schedule is part of it as the Boston Bruins are in a stretch where they are playing four games every seven days pretty much this entire month, and that means there will be times when their best skating legs simply aren’t there. But there was enough accountability in the B’s dressing room for them to admit that they simply didn’t bring their best against a Nashville team playing out the string that they pounded 5-0 when they played them on the road last month.

“Tonight was one of those nights where we did it to ourselves,” said Boston Bruins captain Patrice Bergeron. “No disrespect to them because I obviously think they played a great game and they did what they had to, but we just didn’t execute and that’s what you’re going to get.

“To me it was just that we didn’t play to our standards and to our process, and our details. When you do that, you force plays and you don’t respect the way you want to play the game while getting away from what makes you successful. That’s what you get.”

The Boston Bruins will be facing a similarly out-of-contention Columbus Blue Jackets team on Thursday night, so they’ll need to find that motivation and execution that was lacking against Nashville if they hope to kick start another winning streak.