Bruins Close Road Trip With 7-4 Loss to Kraken

SEATTLE –– The Boston Bruins fell 7-4 to the Seattle Kraken on Tuesday at Climate Pledge Arena, closing out their five-game road trip.

“We just totally got away. We made the mistakes, and they just played nothing really special, but they played the right way and led us to the mistakes. Unfortunately, it cost us two big points,” head coach Marco Sturm said. “Hopefully, we learn from that one.”

The B’s collected a cumulative five points on their West Coast swing.

“We played good, we played bad,” Charlie McAvoy said. “We needed to probably take more advantage of the opportunities that we had. These games all matter at this point, especially for what we’re trying to achieve.”

Jordan Eberle put the Kraken up 1-0 with a power-play goal at 8:50 of the first period, but the Bruins found the 1-1 equalizer ahead of the second.

​Fraser Minten broke up a Seattle play at the blue line before Nikita Zadorov collected the puck along the boards and rocketed it up ice to David Pastrnak on the right side. Pastrnak closed in and flipped it past Kraken netminder Joey Daccord to tie things 1-1 at 12:47.

Pastrnak struck once again after Berkly Catton gave Seattle a 2-1 lead at 2:48 to open the middle frame. McAvoy looped a cross-ice pass over to Pastrnak, who wristed it in at 6:28 to make it 2-2.

​“There’s no excuse to be tired. We had plenty of days and rest. We should’ve been the fresher team, at times we were, but we made a lot of mistakes,” Pastrnak said. “Waste of an opportunity to close out the trip.”​

It was Pastrnak’s second goal of the night, 19th of the season and seventh point in the last three games. Pastrnak has strung together three consecutive multi-point performances, too.

McAvoy extended his point streak to three games with the primary assist. The defenseman finished the night with a point, three shots, one block and one hit through a team-high 23:51 of ice time while skating on the first pair with Jonathan Aspirot.

Seattle regained its advantage, though, with a snapshot from Ben Meyers at 18:23 and a buzzer-beater, power-play tally from Jared McCann at 19:59 for the 4-2 standing. Kaapo Kakko’s goal at 10:21 of the third period, and Catton’s second of the game at 14:20 – this time on the power play – made it 6-2.​

“Mentally, you can’t sleep,” McAvoy said. “It is not enough to be in the right spots, but you have to do your job when you’re there…It’s just completely on us.”​

Mason Lohrei and Viktor Arvidsson both scored in the latter half of the third to pull the Bruins within two, 6-4, by the 17:38 mark, but it proved not enough. Kakko’s empty-net goal at 19:48 earned the final 7-4 scoreline.

​The Bruins return to TD Garden on Thursday, opening a five-game homestand with a matchup against the Calgary Flames.

“It will be great to see the family and be back in Boston,” McAvoy said. “We’ve got to have a really good homestand here.”