Bruins Fall 2-1 to Hurricanes, ‘Learn and Got Something Out of It Today”

RALEIGH –– The Boston Bruins fell 2-1 to the Carolina Hurricanes on Tuesday night at Lenovo Center in a hard-fought battle to open their road trip.

“Overall, I didn’t mind our game. I think we had a good jump right away from that start. The goal right away helped, too, a little bit. But there are just small little things, small little details. Puck management – they just did it a little bit better than us,” head coach Marco Sturm said of the defending Stanley Cup champions. “When you go through a playoff series like they did and won it on the end, they know how to do it. We’re just not there yet, and hopefully we learn and got something out of it today.”

Pavel Zacha put the Bruins ahead 1-0 while on the power play early in the first period. From behind the net, David Pastrnak popped the puck up to Elias Lindholm, who dished a no-look pass to Zacha on the doorstep for the tap-in tally at 1:31. The helper extended Lindholm’s point streak to three games; the former Hurricane has one goal and three assists through that stretch.

“It was a really nice play from Pasta and Lindy there finding me back door. I was there, but it surprised me what a perfect pass that was,” Zacha said. “I didn’t even have to move my stick; it was a good power-play goal.”

Tanner Jeannot gave his group some extra juice, taking on Nicolas Deslauriers in a heavyweight bout at the 13:55 mark of the first.

“Obviously he’s been a guy that’s been doing it for a long time in this league. We’ve had a couple good battles before. I knew that it was a potential tonight, and it felt like it was a time that I could step up for the team,” Jeannot said. “It was a spirited fight between both of us, and hopefully it fired the guys up.”

​Carolina found the 1-1 equalizer from Jackson Blake with 52 seconds remaining in the first, and that score stood pat until the final frame. The B’s opened the third period with a critical 5-on-3 penalty kill, successfully deterring Carolina chances.

“It [gave] us a boost. Huge kill. And we had it, I think we had good momentum coming out and felt pretty good,” Sturm said. “And then the second goal again, it was not them, it was us, unfortunately, and got to learn from it.”​

Jeremy Swayman, as was true all night, was sharp and composed, making timely save after timely save to keep things even. The goaltender ended the night with 28 stops.​

“He’s our backbone. I mean, ever since I’ve been here, he has been. I don’t really know anything different, but he’s incredible,” said Mason Lohrei, who had one block and two hits. “You always know that he's back there for us.”

Sebastian Aho gave the Hurricanes a 2-1 lead with a backhander at 10:19 of the third, and while the B’s had two power plays toward the end of regulation, they were unable to capitalize to tie the contest.

“I think we had a good start. That was something we wanted to get better at – having a good start. And then just being in the game against a really good team, and there were some chances we had,” Zacha said. “How our fourth line played there in the third period, creating chances, that’s what we have to do as every line. Against a playoff team like this, we have to be better.”

The Bruins will close out their two-game road trip on Thursday with an 8 p.m. ET matchup against the St. Louis Blues at Enterprise Center.