Bruins can't recover from poor start, lose to Lightning in Game 3

BOSTON -- They wanted a better start. They got exactly the opposite.
That had been the talk from the Boston Bruins leading up to Game 3 against the Tampa Bay Lightning in the Eastern Conference Second Round. That had been the goal, to start better and stronger, to get a lead and take the cues from the crowd.

Unlike Game 2, when the Bruins faced 10 shots on net in the first 14 minutes and had none of their own, they needed to come out hard and fast and sound. They needed to play their brand of hockey.
They didn't.
"It was a bad start," center Patrice Bergeron said. "There's no question about it."
RELATED: [Lightning score early to win Game 3 | Complete Lightning vs. Bruins series coverage]
The Bruins were down two goals -- both by Ondrej Palat -- less than four minutes into the game, and they would never recover. The Lightning's 4-1 win at TD Garden on Wednesday gave them a 2-1 lead in the best-of-7 series, with Game 4 here on Friday (7 p.m. ET; NBCSN, CBC, TVAS).
"The last two games, we didn't play enough of our game," coach Bruce Cassidy said. "They've played their game better than we've played ours, and they've won both games.
"We were slow at times, and stubborn."
The problem, Cassidy said, was that the Bruins were not hard enough in front of their own net, and were not able to put together the defensive effort required to win.

"We need to defend better," he said. "Part of that is intensity, urgency, pick your word, we didn't have it. You've got to manage the puck first, and then once you don't have it anymore, you've got to have a certain level of structure and urgency to get it back, and we didn't."
It resulted in forced plays, in slow transitions, in turnovers. And that turned into hockey that was undisciplined, ragged and out of control.
The Bruins got back into the game in the second period, when Bergeron scored on the power play at 14:12 to cut the lead to 2-1, and had chances to tie it but were thwarted by goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy, Tampa Bay's defense and their own misplays.
"I think we looked slower than them," Cassidy said. "They are a fast team, so we expect them to play fast. I just think we're not supporting each other quick enough and then making the appropriate play with the puck to appear faster. It seems like it's getting turned over and coming back at us. All of a sudden you're chasing it all the time."
It started with a bobbled puck by defenseman Matt Grzelcyk, who tried to glove a high dump-in by Lightning defenseman Anton Stralman. Grzelcyk lost sight of the puck and got turned around, which allowed Tyler Johnson to send a pass across the slot to the waiting Palat at 1:47 for a 1-0 lead.
"Just trying to gap up, puck kind of felt like it back-spun on me on the ice," Grzelcyk said. "Thought maybe it went behind me, so just took my eye off the puck and they capitalized because they're a good team."

It was a mistake the Bruins could have gotten past, but less than two minutes later the frustration grew. Bruins goaltender Tuukka Rask kicked out a shot by Dan Girardi from the right point, but the puck went straight to Victor Hedman at the left point, and his shot was tipped in by Palat at 3:19.
That made it 2-0 before some of the patrons reached their seats.
"The first mistake, it's not great," Cassidy said. "But you should be able to overcome that. It can happen to anybody. You lost a puck, it bounced funny. The other two, we need to be harder in that scenario. That will be addressed tomorrow, and hopefully if we want to win hockey games we're going to be better on Friday."
There could be a change or two for the Bruins in Game 4. They have not gotten enough from any of their lines beyond the top line, from David Krejci (one assist in the series), from the third line, and from the fourth line, whoever has been on it, and they haven't gotten enough defensively.
So what needs to change?
The refrain was the same.
"Our start," forward Riley Nash said. "Just being on time, being ready to go."
They said it before Game 3. The result was two goals in the first four minutes.
They're saying it again before Game 4.
Now it's time to prove they can follow their own advice.