The Bruins lost another hockey game in Arizona on Tuesday, but they may have lost a whole lot more than that.
At 2:40 of overtime, Linus Ullmark extended his glove arm high and immediately dropped to his belly in pain. He would need help to get off the ice and in came a cold Jeremy Swayman.
The B’s had their chances to win it, but with 56 seconds left in OT, Nick Schmaltz beat Swayman to the far post to life the Arizona Coyotes to a 4-3 OT win at Mullett Arena.
It was not a good night at the rink for the B’s in which Ullmark wasn’t the only player lost to injury.
The B’s lost two one-goal leads to go into the third period tied 2-2 and then saw the Coyotes take their first lead of the game 52 seconds into the third on an unforced error. With Lawson Crouse bearing down on him at the left point of the Arizona zone, Mason Lohrei tried to make a difficult move to his right and tripped himself. That gave Crouse a clean breakaway that Ullmark stopped, but Matias Maccelli followed it up for the go-ahead goal.
The B’s then lost rookie Matt Poitras to an apparent shoulder injury when got hurt checking a Coyote on a forecheck and he went very slowly to the bench and eventually the room.
But the B’s tied it up at 5:04 on a power play after Crouse was caught playing the puck with a broken stick. From the right circle, Jake DeBrusk snapped it past goalie Connor Ingram’s glove, DeBrusk’s ninth of the year.
Charlie Coyle thought he had the go-ahead goal with about 2:30 left in regulation, but Ingram somehow got his pad on Coyle’s second chance try. The puck traveled along the goal line, off the post and out.
Ingram then stoned David Pastrnak on a clean breakaway seconds into overtime and later hit ther post with on another breakaway before Schmaltz won it.
The B’s were already playing without Brandon Carlo (day-to-day with an upper body injury, according to Jim Montgomery), and the B’s didn’t waste much time in testing their penalty kill without their best killing defenseman. Trent Frederic absorbed an elbow from Travis Dermott that the refs missed, but caught Frederic reaching out to grab Dermott.
They were able to kill that and were quickly given their first power play when Matt Dumba hooked Mason Lohrei.
The B’s made them pay. David Pastrnak was taking some heat back home for his cheeky shootout attempt, an attempt at a surprise shot that looked to some like a low effort. But Pastrnak didn’t miss his spot at 4:41. After Morgan Geekie’s backdoor shot was blocked, the puck came out to Pastrnak in the left circle and he beat goalie Connor Ingram with a pure shortside snipe, his 25th goal of the year. That put him into a tie for 10th place on the club’s all-time scoring list with 674points.
From there, the B’s went on cruise control and were lucky to preserve that slim lead going into the first break. They continually coughed up the puck in their own zone and were outshot 12-6 by the Coyotes in the first, but Linus Ullmark kept Arizona off the board.
The Frederic-Dermott contretempts continued early in the second period. But when Frederic was locked up with Dermott, Liam O’Brien jumped in and handed Frederic a handful of rights before flipping him down. O’Brien got the extra two for roughing – he escaped the extra 10 that would have come with an insitgator penalty — but the B’s did nothing with the power play.
The Coyotes, however, got on the board after Matt Grzelcyk was called for tripping. Clayton Keller simply made a hard rush to the net and eventually scored on his own rebound at 8:12.
But just 50 seconds later, Jesper Boqvist scored his first goal as a Bruin – and he made it a beauty. He collected a loose puck in his own zone, turned on the burners up the right wing, cut to the middle of the ice and finally beat Ingram with a wrist shot frorm the high slot.
The B’s, however, could not create any space between themselves and their hosts.
The Coyotes tied it again with 3:30 left in the second. Frederic tried to clear it deep into the Arizona for a change, but it was stopped by the defenseman back at the top of the circle. With the B’s changing out, the Coyotes went on the attack and gained the offensive zone with ease and numbers before Dylan Guenther beat Ullmark with a wrister from the high slot.