Bruins ‘lost our composure’ while blowing 4-goal lead in Stadium Series loss

TAMPA -- Morgan Geekie couldn’t talk around the truth.

The Boston Bruins forward, eye black still smeared under each eye, searched for answers after his Boston Bruins blew a four-goal lead and lost 6-5 in a shootout to the Tampa Bay Lightning in the 2026 Navy Federal Credit Union Stadium Series at Raymond James Stadium on Sunday.

“Yeah, this one stings, for sure,” Geekie said in the visiting dressing room after the Lightning looked despair in the face and said no thanks, reeling off a franchise-record comeback, much to the delight of most of the 64,617 braving a historical cold snap to see history happen.

Geekie scored twice, once to give the Bruins a 2-1 lead and again to make it 5-1 with 8:18 gone in the second period, a goal that silenced all but the patches of Bruins fans that made the trip. Alex Steeves, Viktor Arvidsson and Matthew Poitras also scored for the Bruins against goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy.

But then the wheels fell off when the Bruins allowed three power-play goals in a span of 5:45 during the second.

“Oh man, it hurts. It hurts a lot,” said defenseman Charlie McAvoy, who had two assists but also took two crucial penalties. “The way that we lost it is just brutal.”

Oliver Bjorkstrand started the rally at 10:28 of the second period, while McAvoy was in the box. Darren Raddysh scored during a 5-on-3 at 15:50 after Jeremy Swayman took a delay of game penalty and Tanner Jeannot was assessed one for interference. Twenty-three seconds later, Nick Paul scored on another 5-on-3, this time with Sean Kuraly in the box for closing his hand on the puck.

“We spent half the game in the penalty box,” said McAvoy. “It just killed our momentum. It killed the game, really. It was a good game before that and then we were in the box for that whole [second] period.

“We had complete control of the game, and you give a team with that kind of power play a 5-on-3 for I don’t know how long it was, you are just asking for it.”

Just like that, it was 5-4 and the home of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers was rollicking. When Nikita Kucherov scored 11:50 into the third to tie it, a loss by the Bruins seemed like a foregone conclusion.

“I think it’s just one of those times when you turn to your bullpen and nothing is working and guys can only do so much, especially guys that don’t kill, so we are putting too much pressure on our penalty killers, too,” Geekie said.

But it took until the shootout after David Pastrnak had a goal taken away in overtime because of a penalty he committed before scoring. Jake Guentzel of the Lightning scored the only goal of the shootout in the third round to end it.

“The game was over, the game was in our hands,” Pastrnak said. “We had them. We made the mistakes and let them back in the game with our mistakes and you can’t afford it against a team like Tampa. They are a heck of a team.”

Tampa Bay (35-14-4) leads the Atlantic Division and was 16-1-1 heading into the game. Boston (32-20-4) was five points behind but trailing three other divisional teams.

This was a chance to gain ground. The stakes were huge. They fumbled it.

They gave away a valuable point to a team they hope to emulate.

“We just lost our composure a little bit and it cost us, unfortunately, a point,” Bruins coach Marco Sturm said. “Again, that is something we have to learn. That is a veteran group over there. They have been through it a lot of times. Hopefully, we learned something today.

“At the end of the day, you cannot relax if you got a lead like we had today. You can see how dangerous they are and how good they are.”

These surprising Bruins hope to emulate the Lightning by the time the season ends. They hope they can correct their penchant for taking penalties, which reared its head again here, and find a way to get into the Stanley Cup Playoffs after missing out last season for the time since 2016.

To do so, they need to learn from perhaps the most painful missed opportunity of their season.

“Obviously, a [heck] of a game for the fans, entertaining, good for hockey,” Pastrnak said. “But for us as players, we left a big two points here. Unfortunately, we didn’t get it done.”