The Boston Bruins began their five-game road trip with an embarrassing loss to the Winnipeg Jets on Tuesday night.
The lone highlight of the blowout, aside from David Pastrnak’s 10th goal of the season, was the three straight third-period fights courtesy of Trent Frederic, Mark Kastelic and Nikita Zadorov.
The Bruins simply “were not good” against the Jets in every area of the game.
“They were very good. They were good, and we were not good,” Brad Marchand told reporters in Winnipeg. “We weren’t executing. We were losing our coverage, and we didn’t win enough battles. They were good; they made plays, but we did not have a good game.”
Interim head coach Joe Sacco obviously agreed with the Bruins captain’s assessment of what went wrong on the loss.
“They played well tonight, and they certainly earned the two points,” Sacco said. “We didn’t. They were just a better team tonight, I thought, pretty much from start to finish.”
The Bruins got into trouble early, giving the second-best power-play team three opportunities, but Sacco felt Boston was still in the game through two periods of play.
“The penalties got us into a little bit of trouble tonight, but overall, just, you know, it’s not the start of the road trip that we wanted,” Sacco said. “It’s 3-1 after two periods. We’ve been in that position before. We thought that we could certainly work our way back into the game, but we didn’t.
“So, you don’t take too much stock at the end of the game when it’s 7, 8-1. But there’s things that we need to address and correct. … I think whether it was the power play or 5-on-5, the penalty kill or 5-on-5, it’s an area that we take pride in, and we’ve gotten better at, but it was a step back tonight, and we’ll get back on track.”
Here are more notes from Tuesday’s Bruins-Jets game:
— Jeremy Swayman gave up a career-high eight goals in the loss. He has given up six or more goals in three games this season.
“You’ve got to stay sharp for 60 minutes, and they punished us,” Swayman told reporters. “It’s not acceptable. And we have to move forward, and luckily, we have the group to do it.
“I think some of the goals that I let in, I know I can stop, and that’s something that I hold myself as a standard. When you let those in, it’s not a great feeling. So, I want to make sure that doesn’t happen again. Staying sharp, and playing my game, I know that I can stop those goals. So, that’s what I’m going to do, and push forward.”
Normally, the skaters in front of a goalie would feel they let their netminder down. However, Marchand doesn’t believe that was the case against the Jets.
“Not really, everyone had a bad night, he’s part of it, he’s not singled out,” Marchand said. “I don’t think anyone can put themselves in there and say that they had a good game, so he’s part of the group, it’s part of the loss.”
— Pastrnak’s second-period tally was his fourth power-play goal of the season and his first since Oct. 26 against the Toronto Maple Leafs.
— The Bruins continue their five-game road trip on Thursday night when they travel to Seattle to take on the Kraken. Puck drop from Climate Pledge Arena is scheduled for 10 p.m. ET, and you can watch the game following an hour of pregame coverage on NESN.
