Bruins Drop 6-2 Game to Wild, ‘Learn From It and then You Flush It’

BOSTON –– The Boston Bruins could not find their game on Saturday night, falling 6-2 to the Minnesota Wild at TD Garden.​

“I truly believe [it’s] going to help us moving forward, just playing against teams like that, especially tonight,” head coach Marco Sturm said. “How they play and how they defend in the offensive zone, how they attack the net, the mindset – that was very impressive.”​

The Bruins kept things close in the first period, trailing 1-0 by the end of the 20 minutes; Ryan Hartman gave the Wild the early lead with a wrist shot at 6:54. Minnesota then opened the middle frame with goals from Quinn Hughes and Blake Coleman to take a 3-0 advantage at the two-minute mark.

“Not a bad start and stuff; I think we competed hard and we were ready to go. Get that one, and kept playing pretty good. Not perfect, but solid enough. To come out flat at the start of the second can’t happen. Chasing just a really good hockey team makes it really tough,” Fraser Minten said. “We believe we can be a good team, but we’ve got to show it and continue to improve to do so.”​

Minten got the Bruins on the board with his seventh tally of the year – and second on the power play, which is a new career high for the 22-year-old forward. Morgan Geekie sent the puck down to David Pastrnak, who popped it out to Minten in the slot, where he ripped it far corner to make it 3-1 at 8:45.

The Wild responded just over a minute later with another goal from Hartman at 10:00, extending the gap to 4-1 ahead of the third period.

“It’s hard,” Nikita Zadorov said. “I feel like we couldn’t maintain the momentum today.”

A narrow-angle shot from Pastrnak pulled the B’s within two, 4-2, at 4:45 of the third with his ninth goal of the year and second point of the night, but Danila Yurov soon put the Wild up 5-2 off the rush at 6:15. Yurov’s ensuing empty-netter at 15:20 brought the contest to its final 6-2 standing.

“They are a really good team; took advantage of our mistakes, some sloppy plays and won the game the right way,” Pastrnak said. “We’re going to clear it out, and make sure to be ready for next week. It was a tough week points-wise for us, and more importantly, we know we’ve got much better. We have to start playing the way we can and the way we are built.”​

The B’s will close out the homestand on Tuesday when they host the Los Angeles Kings for a 7 p.m. puck drop.  

“I think just being around a little bit, you take it a day at a time in this league and that’s it. You’re not going to have your best every single night, and it’s unfortunate that the last two against quality opponents – I don’t think we had enough good,” Charlie McAvoy said. “We’ll go back and learn from it. It’s a long season. I don’t think there’s any reason to be discouraged; we’ve put ourselves in a really good spot so far…You learn from it, and then you flush it.”