Wild Third Period Haunts Bruins in Loss

What a difference a day makes.

Twenty-four hours after allowing five third period goals to the New York Rangers in a 5-4 loss at Madison Square Garden, the Minnesota Wild had another eventful third period. This time for Minnesota, a wild third period was a good thing.

Third period goals by Zach Parise, Justin Fontaine and Marco Scandella erased what was once a 3-1 third period Bruins lead to give the Wild a 4-3 victory in Boston Tuesday night.

“Yeah very disappointing third period,” said Milan Lucic who finished the night with a goal and an assist.

“We did what we had to do to establish a two goal lead heading into the third and for our team that’s usually our bread and butter. We’re real good at having that killer instinct and shutting it down and playing our best period in the third. Unfortunately, it wasn’t there. We were losing battles in the D zone. Our execution of our breakouts and supporting one another wasn’t there and it ends up in our net.”

With the Wild playing last night before traveling to Boston, one would have expected a slow start by Minnesota, but that wasn’t the case Tuesday night.

Helped by a sloppy start by the Bruins, the Wild jumped out to a 1-0 first period lead. The Bruins were able to recover though, scoring the next three goals of the game. But much like their sloppy play to start the game, a sloppy third period haunted the Bruins.

“We started playing on our heels, we stopped playing on our toes and being first to the puck, or at least create the battle. We should have been the fresher team tonight,” said head coach Claude Julien.

“That should have been the case. We knew they were going to compete hard, that’s the way that teams plays all the time. It was up to us to push the pace all night long and we didn’t do that. So, you know, again I guess it’s disappointing to see the lack of tape-to-tape passes and how we’re just mismanaging that puck. And then the same thing in the third period, they were just first on it everywhere, winning the battles, winning the races, and the commitment to win was there a lot more than it was for us.”

Despite a few beautiful passes that set up both Seth Griffith goals, the Bruins had trouble making crisp, tape-to-tape passes. Julien wasn’t all too pleased with what he saw from his team.

“I think it goes hand in hand. When you’re not working hard you’re stretching passes and everything else,” added Julien. “But the bottom line is that at this level you’ve got to have better execution than we’ve had. I don’t care about whether they’re long passes or not.

“Guys can make long passes in this league, tape to tape, but it’s our passes in skates and then we fight to get control of the puck. It starts from there, then you’re scrambling in your own end and it ends up in the back of your net. We certainly have to have better concentration on that and better execution if we expect to be a better team.”

With it being the second game in as many nights for the Wild, the third period should have been an easy one for the Bruins, especially with a two-goal lead, but the Wild out worked the Bruins and simply wanted it more.

“I mean that was huge. It happened to us in New York, and we knew that we had a good game” said Scandella after scoring the game winner. “We just wanted to keep going, keep pushing and that’s what we did in the third period. I felt like we had a lot of momentum and it was bound to happen.”

It was a rough night for the Bruins third defensive pairing of Matt Bartkowski and Zach Trotman. Bartkowski turned the puck over which led to the Wild’s first goal and then failed to see the ice after the Wild took the lead at 14:07 of the third period.

With captain Zdeno Chara out for the next 4-6 weeks, the Bruins will need each and every defenseman to step up and log those key minutes that they normally get from Chara, especially in the third period. The B’s needed more from Bartkowski and Trotman Tuesday night, unfortunately they didn’t get that.

A guy who has to pick up the slack with Chara out is Dougie Hamilton. Continuing to improve each night, Hamilton logged a career high 28:32 in ice time.

“Not really, I felt good, so I was happy I was playing a lot, and I think like I’ve said before I play better when I play more and you’re into the game more and you’re not sitting on the bench waiting for your shift. I felt good and enjoyed it,” said Hamilton. “It’s just unfortunate that we had the third period that we had.”

The blame is certainly not all on the defense. The Bruins as a team were not very sharp, but without their Captain on the ice the Bruins need to be better in their own zone.

As a guy who has seen a ton of Chara in his career, Parise knows how much of a difference not having Chara on the ice makes.

“He controls a game. I know personally I have been matched up against him quite a bit playing in New Jersey and he just makes such a difference out there,” Parise said. “He plays 30 minutes, all situations; it’s a tough hole to fill. Any team, if you lose your number one defenseman, it’s going to hurt.”

Without or without Chara, the Bruins won’t win many games playing third periods like they did against the Wild.

Check out what the Bruins had to say following their loss to the Wild: