B's Drop Third Straight with Loss to Winnipeg

WINNIPEG, Manitoba- The Bruins left for their three-game road trip on Saturday night with their 19-game point streak alive and well. They will return to Boston almost a week later with three consecutive regulation losses for the first time since early December.
Following setbacks to Pittsburgh and Columbus to start the trip, the Bruins - despite another late-game comeback attempt - fell to the Winnipeg Jets, 4-3, on Thursday night at Bell MTS Place.

"I don't like to lose one in a row, so there's always concern. There's different factors that go into it," said Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy. "I think we played three very good hockey teams this week. That's part of it. Part of it is we haven't started on time, so we put ourselves in a hole. We're playing catch up every night. That's a bad formula in the National Hockey League."

Boston has fallen behind by two goals or more five times in the last six contests, including all three games on the road trip. The Bruins know they must quickly figure out the reasons behind their slow starts.
"We shot ourselves in the foot at the start of every game," said Patrice Bergeron. "Tough to get back in this league, tough to do that every night. We've done it on the tail end of our point streak. But you could tell that we were getting away from what's been good to us and it's about getting that back.
"A lot of things to look at…obviously you want results in this league and we didn't get it on this trip."
Boston did, however, continue its trend of battling back. After falling behind by two in Pittsburgh, four in Columbus, and two again in Winnipeg, the Bruins plugged away to tie or pull within a goal in each of them. On Thursday night, the Bruins found themselves trailing, 2-0, at the 11:24 mark of the first period, once again forcing them to play catch-up hockey.

Charlie McAvoy got Boston on the board when he banked home his sixth of the year off the post with 2:37 left in the first, providing some momentum heading into intermission. The Bruins fed on that in the second, outshooting the Jets, 19-7, and finding the equalizer on Joakim Nordstrom's first goal since Dec. 17 at the 10-minute mark of the second.
"At the moment, obviously you're excited," said Nordstrom, who now has six goals on the season, one shy of his career high. "Been a while since one went in the back of the net, so I was happy."
But the Bruins' strong second did not carry over to the final frame. Winnipeg struck for two goals (Jacob Trouba at 7:38 and Nikolaj Ehlers at 13:02) to regain control.
"We've just got to regroup, look at video and realize what we can do better and simplify our game and have better starts," said Bergeron. "Going home is probably a good thing. We're gonna be on the road a lot, so we've got to make sure that we're playing some good road hockey here. It's got to be better on the next road trip."

Weymouth's Wingers

The Bruins made one final push in the closing minutes with Charlie Coyle tipping home Zdeno Chara's blast from the point with 2:56 remaining to pull Boston within 4-3. It was Coyle's first goal since being acquired from Minnesota last month.
Meanwhile, Coyle's fellow Weymouth native Paul Carey made his Bruins debut alongside Coyle and David Krejci. The Boston College product had three shots on goal in 16:47 of ice time and forced a turnover that led to McAvoy's goal in the first.
"He was good, he was very good," said Cassidy. "He was attacking the net, he had good composure. He's played 100 games in the league, so that's part of it, it's not new to him to play in the National Hockey League. It's new to him to play for the Bruins with the linemates he had. I thought he did very well and I was happy with his play."

No Excuses

Despite being down three forwards (Jake DeBrusk, Marcus Johansson, and David Pastrnak) and three defensemen (Matt Grzelcyk, Torey Krug, and Kevan Miller), the Bruins believe they have enough to win each and every night. As such, they were not interested in using the injuries as an excuse for their poor trip.
"We have really good depth on our team, so that's not an excuse," said Nordstrom. "We have a good enough team to be able to win every night. We're not happy with the way we started the games on this trip. That's something that we have to work on."