Bruins At Blues Final Score: Sloppy Defense And Missed Second Period Chances Give Boston 4-2 Win

For the first time since December 2nd, the Blues lost a game on home ice. For the first time since October, they lost two games in a row in regulation.

Calm down.

The team’s not going to implode and lose every game for the rest of the season. Losing happens. Losing streaks happen. Look at the Blackhawks and their tumble downhill there for a while. Now? Two in a row. You have to have patience, and you have to remember that there’s still around a month an a half of regular season hockey left.

Unfortunately for the Blues, most of that happens on the road. After tonight, they’ll be hopping down the road to Nashville — no rest for the wicked.

Speaking of wicked, the defense tonight was wicked awful. No neutral zone coverage, bad turn overs, sloppy play, you name it — a lack of defense was why Brad Marchand was able to walk right up to Brian Elliott and put home his second goal of the night:

Also one of the highlights of the evening and a metaphor for the last two games: David Backes accidentally hitting T.J. Oshie in the nose and mouth with his stick on a botched check. Luckily Oshie isn’t broken, because the Blues’ll be down Jamie Langenbrunner, Alex Steen, and Matt D’Agostini for a while. Adding another forward to that pile probably wouldn’t be the best idea.

Overall, a well played game by the Bruins who seized on the Blues’ mistakes. It was a hard-fought game by both teams, and I saw more than a few tweets saying how this matchup would be so much fun as a Cup Finals one. The Blues have to learn to win matchups like this during the regular season first.

Bruins At Blues Second Period Score: From Tons Of Goals To None; Bruins Lead 3-2

Well, that was surprisingly uneventful. I was expecting shades of last night’s Flyers/Jets game, where the see-saw didn’t stop until Jaromir Jagr scored the winning overtime goal. The first period was a see-saw-a-thon, but this period? Both teams apparently felt the need to start playing defense.

The Blues’ level of intensity seemed to be much, much higher this period — a response, no doubt, to some of coach Ken Hitchcock’s concerns from an intermission talking to. The hits were ratcheted up, the actual defense was ratcheted up, everything seemed like exactly what the Blues needed to do to take control of this game. The Blues had ten more shots than the Bruins that period, 14-4, and lead in the shot total by 14 (24-10). Is this another game where the Blues are on rapid fire and can’t get that goal that they need? Hopefully not.

Bruins At Blues First Period Score: Goaltending Optional In 3-2 Bruins Lead

This is not the kind of period that the Blues and their defense would like to save for posterity. Bad giveaways, bad position, and a fairly bad goaltending performance by Brian Elliott so far could be costing the Blues’ home game point streak.

The first goal was scored just a little over two minutes in, as Brad Marchand flipped in a puck past Brian Elliott with the effort he would use to pick up a post-Cup celebratory beer: none at all. What added insult to injury is that he stripped the puck from Kevin Shattenkirk and walked basically unopposed to the net. This was a bad, rare defensive zone giveaway by the Blues that cost them.

Milan Lucic added insult to injury a little under four minutes later, with a slapper that deflected in possibly off of Patrik Berglund’s stick. Elliott couldn’t track the directional change, and poof. Goal number two for Boston:

Chris Stewart gets to his own rebound from a shot on Tim Thomas and whaps it home. The impressive thing is, his initial shot was from Thomas’ left and bounced out to his right; Stewart had to fly around the back of the net to shoot it in. That’s his first goal in seven games. He hasn’t scored since February 9th against the New Jersey Devils.

B.J. Crombeen, who decided to try to spark the team with a fight between himself and Boston’s Adam McQuaid, figured he should try to spark the team again; this time, he chose scoring a goal:

(EDIT: the goal was later changed to Ryan Reaves)

Unfortunately, the Bruins apparently felt that going into the intermission tied might do too much for the Blues’ morale. Chris Kelly fixed that problem with just 40 seconds to go in the first period. Brian Elliott has allowed three goals in six shots, while Tim Thomas’s allowed two on nine. Neither All-Star is having what you could consider an all-star caliber game.

Bruins At Blues: Blues Can Add To Slumping Bruins' Problems Tonight

The Blues and Bruins are both hard nosed teams reliant on excellent goaltending and even strength play; both teams are also missing important cogs in the machine for tonight's match-up.