The Bruins (0-3) Are Off to Their Worst Start In 16 Years

The week to forget continued for the Bruins as they welcomed another top club to TD Garden this afternoon and limped away with an eerily similar loss. Tampa Bay (3-0) looked the part of defending Eastern Conference champions as they rallied from an early 2-0 deficit and fought off three power-play goals by Boston (0-3) to post a 6-3 victory on Columbus Day. This is the worst start for the Bruins since 1999-2000 and the 16 goals allowed in these three defeats is their most in 50 years.

It all started so well too as David Krejci (1 goals, 2 assists) scored on a power-play at 2:59 from Torey Krug (3 assists) and Patrice Bergeron. Loui Eriksson doubled Boston's lead after a tap-in at 11:02, another power-play strike that was preceded by slick passing from Krug and Krejci. Former BC star and Hingham native Brian Boyle cut it to 2-1 at 15:42 after the big man was somehow allowed to skate in the slot unimpeded than rip a wrist shot over Tuukka Rask (17 saves). It's been a shaky start for Rask and you can't blame all his troubles on the crappy defensemen in front of him. Ondrej Palat tied it at 16:52 with a weak shot that squeaked through Rask's pads.

David Pastrnak has been one of Boston's lone bright spots to this dark period but he looked like a child when Boyle came barreling through the neutral zone and bounced off him without breaking his slow stride. Boyle went in on a breakaway and scored on a backhander, four seconds after Tampa Bay had killed a Bruins power-play. Ben Bishop (27 saves) is another top goaltender in the NHL and he had an uneven performance although his acting ability led to a pair of goaltender interference penalties called on the B's. Eriksson added another power-play tally at 12:20 by deftly tipping in Krejci's shot with Krug getting another helper.

Tampa Bay ended Boston's 10-game winning streak vs. Lightning at TD Garden, this was their first road win here since March 25, 2010. Steven Stamkos was able to exorcise some personal demons as well since this was the rink where he gruesomely broke his leg two years ago. He picked up his 500th career point with his patented one-timer rocket at 15:17. Zdeno Chara returned today (Matt Irwin was rightfully sent to Providence after he cleared waivers) while Brad Marchand was out with a concussion but Boston couldn't muster another comeback in the third period. As good teams usually do, some fluky goals went the Lightning's way as Rask gave up a horrible goal to Jonathan Drouin at 5:38 and Valtteri Filppula sent most of the fans home early with a goal off his skate at 15:58 (it looked like he kicked it but it stood after a review).

For a team with so many problems, perhaps the best thing for the Bruins to do is get out of the area for awhile and try to regroup. They are at Colorado (1-1-0) on Wednesday (10, NESN) and Arizona (2-0) on Saturday (10, NESN). Their next home game isn't until a week from Wednesday against equally terrible Philly (0-1-1). Needless to say, for head coach Claude Julien's job security and numerous players, the B's need points starting as soon as possible.

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Who Wants A Sweep? Not The Bruins Apparently Who Choke Away Game 4 Vs. Rangers In OT

The Bruins clearly saw the awful forecast this weekend in New England so they thought, "we can't do anything outside so why don't we play another game against the Rangers instead?" Boston had a glorious chance to send New York home for the summer but they blew a pair of leads (2-0, 3-2) en route to a 4-3 overtime loss at Madison Square Garden in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference semifinals. The Bruins still own a 3-1 lead in the series but this has been deceptively close since three of the four games have been decided by one goal with two in overtime.

Game 5 is Saturday (5:30 p.m., NBCSN) and it's only happening because of BC and Eastern Mass products Brian Boyle and Chris Kreider (who had the game-winner). Well that's not true, it also took a couple insanely improbable things to let New York climb back into this. Credit to the Rangers though as Boyle finally solved their power play drought (0 for 12 in the series before that) for the tying goal at 10:00 in the third period. Kreider celebrated his promotion to a better line (sorry Brad Richards) with a pretty tip-in from Rick Nash at 7:03 in overtime.

Just like Game 3, the B's took it to the Rangers from the start and New York played like they couldn't care less. Between swearing at the refs, John Tortorella kept busy during TV timeouts by updating his resume and creating a Linked In profile. Boston outshot New York 12-4 in the first period but they couldn't beat Henrik Lundqvist (37 saves). The Bruins struck twice on the power play in the second period to grab the 2-0 advantage. Nathan Horton slipped one past King Henrik at 4:39, his fifth of the playoffs, from David Krecji and Brad Marchand. Torey Krug scored his third goal in four games at 7:41 with a long range slap shot from Tyler Seguin and Horton.

Someone must have slipped booze in Tuukka Rask's (28 saves) water bottle since he made one of the worst mistakes I've ever seen by an NHL goaltender that totally changed the tenor of what was shaping up to be an easy win for the Black and Gold. 58 seconds after Krug's goal, Carl Hagelin innocently floated a backhander on Rask that caused him to trip over his own skates than attempt to flail his stick at the slowly moving puck. It didn't work, 2-1 Bruins.

Rask's flask was passed to Zdeno Chara in the Bruins dressing room between periods because then it was his turn to make an unbelievable mistake that never happens. Chara was going behind Boston's net when Derek Stepan stripped the puck from him then wrapped it around the goal and in before Rask could recover. It made Tuukka look bad too but I can't blame him nearly as much as Chara, what was that?

If those goals weren't strange enough, Tyler Seguin suddenly morphed into a guy with confidence that could finish around the net. He made it 3-2 at 8:06 from Dougie Hamilton and Chara, his first goal of the playoffs looked like it might clinch the series.

About that, Boston took its annual too many men on the ice penalty which led to Boyle's goal. As hopeless as New York's power play has been, you knew that eventually they would figure it out.

The shots were even 7-7 in overtime but it felt like the B's had better scoring chances and it was only a matter of time before they ended it. As Lee Corso would say, "not so fast my friend!" Boston fell to 3-1 in overtime this postseason while New York improved to 1-3. The Bruins are 1-3 in closeout games but unlike the Maple Leafs series, this time they gave themselves one more game of breathing room. Actually forget I said that, please end it on Saturday night!

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