After finishing Thursday night with another defeat at the hands of the two-time Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers, the Boston Bruins have some regrouping to do as they travel to face the Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday.
On a recent good run of 7-2-2 play, the Bruins (43-25-8, 94 points) find themselves on fairly solid ground in the wild-card standings, holding the top spot over the No. 2 Ottawa Senators, who have 88 points with a game in hand.
The Detroit Red Wings and Columbus Blue Jackets also are six points back, while the Philadelphia Flyers had 86 points as Friday opened.
Coach Marco Sturm’s Beantown bunch cannot afford a letdown like they had against the Panthers, who are playing short-handed without elite players like Aleksander Barkov, Sam Reinhart and former Bruin Brad Marchand.
However, Florida scored twice inside the first eight minutes, Fraser Minten netted his 17th in the period’s final minute, and the final 40 minutes went scoreless as the homestanding Panthers snapped Boston’s four-game winning streak.
Sturm said the result was due to taking the red-clad champs lightly.
“We didn’t respect our opponent tonight,” said Sturm, whose club finished 0-2-1 against Florida. “They had a lot of guys out, and we didn’t do our job. Shame on us today. … With a team like that, I don’t care who is out, they are a good structure team and played hard. We weren’t willing to do it.”
Added Morgan Geekie, who has a club-high 34 goals: “Tonight, it feels like you let everyone down. Had the opportunities.”
David Pastrnak reached 96 points (29 goals, 67 assists) on Minten’s tally. He is trying to tie Bobby Orr and Phil Esposito as the only Boston players to notch four 100-point seasons.
The Lightning (47-22-6, 100 points) did not clinch a playoff spot in Thursday’s 6-3 win over the visiting Pittsburgh Penguins, but they showed their moxie by netting five unanswered goals and moved back atop the division standings by percentage points over the second-place Buffalo Sabres.
Anthony Cirelli clinched the victory with an empty-net goal to secure his second career hat trick. His first was at the Winnipeg Jets in a 7-1 debacle on Jan. 17, 2020, a month before COVID abruptly halted the season.
Centering a second line with Gage Goncalves and Oliver Bjorkstrand, the 28-year-old Cirelli has recorded 23 goals and 29 assists in 67 matches. He slots at a plus-35 in his production.
“Tony deserves that,” Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper stated. “Every shift he just gives everything, so you love to see guys like that get rewarded.”
The victory was a fine bounce back for the Lightning after dropping a crucial 4-1 contest Tuesday night against the red-hot Montreal Canadiens, who have won seven straight.
Cooper’s squad improved to 24-13-1 on home ice and is 4-1-1 on its season-long seven-game homestand.
“I really look at what we’re giving up and we’re not giving up too much,” Cooper said. “And we were able to score a few goals against a really good team.”
Nikita Kucherov had a goal and two assists for his 19th three-point game this season, and goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy (36-13-4, 2.34 goal-against average, .910 save percentage) maintained his league lead in wins over Utah’s Karel Vejmelka (34).
