Boston Bruins

No Luck For Bruins In Brutal OT Loss To Sabres

Published

1 month ago

March 17, 2025

Andrew Fantucchio

Boston Hockey Now/Andrew Fantucchio

BOSTON — There are many things the Boston Bruins are not this season.

They’re not a good team and are, most likely, not going to qualify for the postseason. But above all, the Bruins are certainly not lucky, as they continue to find new and seemingly unfathomable ways to lose hockey games.

Such was the case Monday night at TD Garden, where not even St. Patrick himself could stop the Buffalo Sabres from scoring with 10.7 seconds left in overtime to sink the Bruins 3-2.

Playing down a man four-on-three, Boston had nearly killed off a tripping penalty by Marat Khusnutdinov. But with only two seconds remaining until Khusnutdinov would’ve been set free, a shot from the point deflected off Bruins defenseman Henri Jokiharju and past Joonas Korpisalo in goal. Alex Tuch was officially credited with the winning goal for the Sabres.

ALEX TUCH WITH THE OT TIP‼️ pic.twitter.com/aw71iku9lR

— Buffalo Sabres (@BuffaloSabres) March 18, 2025

“It felt like if anybody should get a power play in the overtime, it should have been us,” Pastrnak said. “I think they’ve been having power plays the whole game around, so, yeah, that’s just my opinion. That’s why I was mad. It was when [Korpisalo] got slashed when he had covered the puck twice on that power play. They could have evened it up, and they decided to look away. That’s frustrating that they got the power play opportunity in overtime.”

A power-play goal from Peyton Krebbs began the scoring for the Sabres 4:19 into the game. That, coupled with the fact the Bruins failed to put a shot on goal through the first 12:31 of the game and later failed to convert on a five-on-three man-advantage opportunity, made it seem that Boston was heading for yet another disastrous period.

But after that slow start, the Bruins quickly found their form and the lead.

Pavel Zacha capped off a hard-nosed blue-collar shift for Boston’s first line, converting a crisp feed from Morgan Geekie into his 14th goal of the season that evened the score.

“I wanted to shoot it,” said Geekie. “I couldn’t get a good handle on it and realized [the defender] didn’t have a stick. I just tried to give [Zacha] enough time to get over to the other side and pass it slow enough where he could get around it and get some wood on it.”

Geekie then put the Bruins in front two minutes later as he scored his 23rd goal of the year on a breakaway after Parker Wotherspoon hit him with a stretch pass that left nothing but open ice between him and Sabres goalie Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen.

Geeks gets us the lead 🤓 pic.twitter.com/ie5IkQMt8w

— Boston Bruins (@NHLBruins) March 17, 2025

The brief burst, though, dissipated for the Bruins during a brisk second period where they had just four shots on goal. Boston didn’t give up much in the frame, either, as scoring chances were few and far between for both sides. That’s why it took a nearly perfect shot by Owen Power from the left face-off circle that beat Korpisalo inside the top corner of the near post to tie the score once again at 2-2.

As he has been for the majority of this season, Korpisalo was once again solid in goal for the Bruins, stopping 27 of the 30 shots that came his way. The simple fact of the matter is the Bruins simply didn’t give Luukkonen the same treatment.

Over the game’s final 44 minutes and change, the Bruins registered just 11 shots on goal. They finished the game with a combined 19 as a team, making it the second game in a row they’ve been held under 20 shots on goal.

“I think we’re just defending too much,” Pastrnak said. “Unfortunately, the second period against Tampa, that was unacceptable. It wasn’t as bad, but a similar thing happened this second period. We were defending a lot against a highly offensive skilled team. It’s obviously tiring to be playing defense. We have to be stronger in the O-zone and create more opportunities.”

The Bruins will have to find those opportunities away from home over the next two weeks as they hit the road for a five-game trip beginning Thursday night in Las Vegas.