The Boston Bruins entered Saturday’s matinee against the Tampa Bay Lightning with a chance to clinch a 2026 Stanley Cup Playoff berth. In many cases, clinching a postseason opportunity requires help from other teams. Unlike many teams this time of year, the Bruins’ path was simple: win, and they’re in.
This is not how things ended up going.
Low-scoring affairs are all too common in the playoffs, but that’s often due to a combination of a few factors. Whether it’s teams playing a more conservative brand of hockey to limit opportunities, solid defensive structures mitigating scoring chances, strong goaltending play or a combination of the three, the average score in playoff games is often lower than in the regular season.
Losing a 2-1 game in a must-win situation isn’t the end of the world. There are still two games left for the Bruins to win, which head coach Marco Sturm mentioned in his postgame press conference.
“We were hoping for a big day and afternoon here in Boston. Unfortunately, it didn’t happen,” said Sturm. “Again, we have to look at the positives. The positive for me is we still have two games left, still in our control. We’re going to get back at it tomorrow.”
While Sturm is right, it wasn’t the result of the game that was as concerning as the way the game went.
Bruins Losing Due to Self-Inflicted Wounds
Morgan Geekie may have rediscovered his scoring touch with four goals in the last two games, but the Bruins as a whole are still struggling to generate consistent offense. Despite that, they’ve been content to keep James Hagens on the sideline in must-win situations instead of seeing if he can spark something.
It’s fair to say that Hagens is young, inexperienced and must learn the Bruins defensive system before jumping into action. It’s also fair to note that the Bruins were guilty of far too many turnovers in their own zone against the Lightning, with the most costly coming just seconds before Emil Lilleberg scored the game-winner with 1:35 remaining.
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Hagens lacks experience in the system, but the veteran players in the lineup didn’t demonstrate enough to prove that they were worth any more trust than the 19-year-old Hagens. If they can’t play a responsible brand of hockey in a must-win game while also failing to score, then something has to give.
If it weren’t for Jeremy Swayman playing a tremendous game, things could have been much worse than the final score indicated. Right now, the Bruins are their own biggest enemy.
Even if the Bruins do clinch a playoff berth, they’ll be in for a very short postseason run if they can’t get out of their own way and get back to basics. From the top down, everybody needs to be better. It starts with Sturm’s personnel decisions and coaching pre-game and mid-game. From there, the players need to be more responsible in their own zone, play a more deliberate brand of hockey for a full 60 minutes and find a way to generate offense without being defensive liabilities.
The Bruins did show some positives despite the turnovers and lack of scoring, but at this stage of the season, that only goes so far. If they don’t clean up the mistakes quickly, those positives won’t matter for long. If the Bruins can build on the positives and clean up the mistakes, they could still make some noise in the playoffs. Whether they actually do will depend on how quickly these changes come.
