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Kristen Shilton
multiple authors
boston bruins‘Couldn’t even see the bench jeremy swayman In the eye.
Swayman’s teammates could only stare blankly ahead as their goaltender – when he was pulled buffalo saber took a 6-0 third-period lead in Game 4 of their first-round Eastern Conference playoff series on Sunday — expressing displeasure at his disappointing performance as he walked to the dressing room.
joonas korpisalo Swayman took over, and the Bruins managed a marker. 6-1 defeat This gave the Sabers a 3–1 series advantage and moved Boston to the brink of elimination. Game 5 is Tuesday in Buffalo.
If the Bruins were initially silenced by Swayman’s understandable anger — being scolded and scolded by the Boston faithful probably didn’t help matters — they were blunt in taking ownership for Sunday’s big debacle.
“Man to man here, if we’re not embarrassed by what just happened, I don’t know what to say,” Charlie McEvoy Said. “We have everything to play for here, and we know there are better teams than what we just did.”
Boston was in disarray from the start of Game 4, as several turnovers and lazy defense allowed the Sabers to score three goals (from Peyton Crabs, josh don And zach benson) Buffalo had a wide lead with 4:58 left in the first period.
Bruins coach Marco Sturm called a timeout to try to organize his group, and it didn’t help – bowen byram Less than five minutes later, Swayman had another chance. Boston lost after trailing 19–5 after 20 minutes and had little chance of coming out of it in a disappointing 4–0 deficit.
“Wasted opportunity. Unacceptable,” said david pasternakWhich was minus-2. “We expect better from ourselves. We’re better than that, and we can’t look like that. The first period is very important. You can’t win or lose the game [like that] And to show that in the first period, it’s unacceptable.”
Boston was slightly better in the goalless second period, during which it had a 10-4 shot advantage. But not a single Bruin could come up with some goal support for Swayman. Until Beck Malensteen And alex touch By the end of Swayman’s afternoon of scoring 1:24 apart in the third (with a .793 save percentage), no one could blame the goaltender – who did not speak to the media after the game – for expressing his frustration.
“Absolutely [like to see that fire]. At least from a guy, OK,” Sturm said of Swayman. “Today wasn’t his fault. I felt bad for him. So we kept him there for some time. Because he is a warrior. He wants to be in it.”
The Bruins were inexplicably bad in every aspect. Boston fell behind 35-24, went 0-for-1 on the power play and had 17 giveaways. It was such a head-scratching endeavor that even Sturm could not find the words to describe what he saw.
“I can’t, I really can’t. I don’t know,” Sturm said. “I don’t really know. If you’re the Boston Bruins and playing at home, you should be pretty excited to go to a playoff game. We didn’t [play well]. …I am embarrassed. We should all be ashamed.”
If there wasn’t enough drama, the Bruins defender Nikita Zadorov It was decided to stir the pot for a longer period in the third period. In a surprising sequence, Zadorov reached out to the Sabers captain Rasmus Dahlin at center ice during a stoppage and fired a dangerous crosscheck that hit Dahlin hard on his right hand. Zadorov was given a five-minute penalty for cross-checking and a game misconduct. He could face supplemental discipline, causing the Bruins to forfeit the remainder of the series.
At that, Sturm was likewise tongue-tied.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I can’t answer that. Sorry.”
Sabers coach Lindy Ruff was more verbose in expressing her feelings about Freedom’s effort on her team captain.
“I understand the spirit of it just by the way the game went,” Ruff said. “You see it in playoff games. That type of raw emotion, it happens because a player is so frustrated with the game. There’s a lot of joking inside the game. That’s not the game you want. I’m pretty sure if it was the regular season there could have been a suspension. Rasmus’ arm could have easily been broken with the cross-check.”
For now, Buffalo has booked it out of Boston with everything going its way (except for the still-poor power play, which went 0 of 3 on Sunday and is an astonishing 0 of 38 since April 2). The Bruins were licking their wounds searching for answers as to how they would shake off consecutive losing streaks on home ice and get back into this series.
“It starts with me and the leaders on the ice,” Sturm said. “I cannot expect the youth to turn the ship around and get us out of this. They [veterans] These are the people, including myself, who need to take charge.”
