Forget the refs. Bruins only have themselves to blame after collapse in Tampa.

"It's just kind of looking ourselves in the mirror, I think. It's been an issue all year."

Jeremy Swayman and the Bruins came undone against the Lightning on Sunday. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)

February 3, 2026

6 minutes to read

COMMENTARY

TAMPA — Amid all of the pageantry drummed up by Sunday’s Stadium Series game at Raymond James Stadium, Bruins head coach Marco Sturm tried to put things in perspective.

Skating in front of over 64,000 fans on a chilly night in Tampa represented a unique opportunity for Sturm’s upstart team.

But there was business to be done in what stood as one of Boston’s most daunting tests of the season.

An 11-2-1 record in January propelled Boston back into the playoff picture.

One of the few teams sporting a better record over that stretch? The Lightning — who entered Sunday with a record of 16-1-1 in their last 18 games.

Under the bright lights of a football stadium, the Bruins had a prime opportunity to validate their status as a legitimate playoff threat amid a retool that’s far ahead of schedule.

“I’m going to share that tomorrow to my guys — to just try to stay focused as quickly as we can, because we play a really good hockey team over there,” Sturm said Saturday afternoon. “And also, we need the points. So we want to enjoy the moment. But also — we are here to get two points.”

The sentiment in Boston’s room shifted quickly after Sunday’s eventual 6-5 shootout loss to the Bolts.

Yes, there were the pained reflections on letting a valuable point slip away — especially after holding a 5-1 lead midway through the second period.

But it was tough to ignore Boston’s incessant parade to the penalty box as well.

“That hurts. It hurts a lot,” Charlie McAvoy said postgame. “The way that we lost it is just brutal, spending half the game in the penalty box.”

The Bruins largely took umbrage with the way the officials managed the second half of Sunday’s primetime matchup.

As guilty as the Bruins were of several infractions, the Lightning were handed seven-straight power-play bids from 9:07 in the second period through the end of a roller-coaster game.

There’s a valid case to be made that a Bolts skater or two should have been sent to the penalty box amid that sustained stretch of chaos — with McAvoy in particular the recipient of some painful cross-checks near the crease.

David Pastrnak was steamed about his game-winning tally getting called back in overtime — with the star winger instead ushered to the box for a slash seconds after beating Andrei Vasilevskiy clean.

“I have no clue what happened,” Pastrnak said postgame. “It’s a freakin’ turnover, we’ve got a 2-on-1, the referee has his arm up, he’s letting me go, Sway’s going to the bench, we finished the play, score a goal and all of a sudden I’m in the penalty box. It’s a joke. I don’t understand.

“I’ve never seen something like that. To me it was a joke. I don’t care if that’s a bad answer, but that’s how I feel. It’s weird. Score a goal and end up in the penalty box. Whatever. We gave them two points and that’s what matters. Tough on us.”

The Bruins’ frustrations were evident on a night where a lopsided victory quickly gave way to misery.

But even when factoring in the discrepancy of calls down the stretch, the fact of the matter is that the Bruins shouldn’t have even been in a position where they needed to hold on for dear life in hopes of scrapping together at least a point.

Following a season-long trend of strong play getting undercut by poor discipline, the Bruins can only look themselves in the mirror for what played out on Sunday night.

“It always comes back to us,” Sturm said. “And if you give a guy like [Nikita] Kucherov [four points on Sunday] 10 minutes on the power play? You know you did something wrong. So that’s on us.”

Look no further than the fracas that spilled out in the second period —beyond a goalie scrap between Jeremy Swayman and Vasilevskiy.

Even taking out Swayman’s two penalties for his bout with Vasilevskiy, the Bruins were still whistled for six more penalties through the final 11 minutes of the second period.

The total damage? Two roughing calls against McAvoy, a roughing call against Mark Kastelic after Oliver Bjorkstrand struck on the power play, a delay of game against Swayman, an interference call against Tanner Jeannot, and a penalty against Sean Kuraly for closing his hand over a puck.

Kucherov and the Lightning’s power play smelled blood in the water.

“That just killed the game, really,” McAvoy said of those penalties. “It was a good game, I think, before that. And then we’re in the box for that whole period. Obviously, the goalie fight was fun, and that was really cool for Sway and us.

“But it was like, after that, we just kept taking penalties. We had complete control of the game. And then you give a team with that kind of power play a 5-on-3 for — I don’t even know how long it was — like, you’re just asking for it.”

By the time both teams made it back into their respective dressing rooms at the end of the second, a 5-1 Bruins lead had been trimmed to 5-4 — with a pair of 5-on-3 tallies putting Boston on the brink of collapse.

Kucherov did the honors with an equalizer in the third period, while Jake Guentzel capped off Tampa’s comeback by scoring the lone goal in the shootout.

Leaving Tampa with at least one point is usually a silver lining drawn out of bouts with the Bolts.

But not on Sunday.

“We could complain all day and night about the calls that were made,” Morgan Geekie said. “But at the end of the day, there weren’t too many of them that weren’t penalties. And it’s just unfortunate that we kept putting ourselves in the box knowing what they have on the other side when it comes to special teams.

“So, yeah, it’s just kind of looking ourselves in the mirror, I think. It’s been an issue all year. So it’s not like it’s a one-off thing, so just try to pick up on that and forget about it and move on to Florida.

With just 26 games left on the regular-season docket, there’s a lot to like about how the Bruins have played this year.

As was the case on Sunday, the Bruins have shown themselves to be a competitive group at 5-on-5 play — especially when it comes to generating offense (125 goals, tied for third in the NHL).

A fourth-ranked power play (26.9 percent) has played a key role in Boston’s surge up the standings.

But the Bruins’ issues with staying out of the box have often been their undoing, especially with Boston’s PK now taking on water (77.0 percent, 27th in NHL). It doesn’t help that Boston’s laboring shorthanded crew keeps getting put on the ropes by a roster that leads the NHL in penalty minutes per game (13.4).

That poor discipline will need to be corrected if the Bruins intend on actually playing meaningful hockey in April and beyond.

In a perfect world, Sunday’s showdown with the Bolts should have been a statement game for Sturm and the Bruins.

Instead it served as a reminder that the Bruins still have plenty of work to do in the coming weeks.

“I don’t think they were better than us today, hockey-wise, but they were better than us after the whistle,” Sturm said of Tampa. “They’re not tougher than us, but they did a good job. And we just lost our composure a little bit, and cost us, unfortunately, a point.

“So again, that’s something we have to learn. That is a veteran group over there. They’ve been through it a lot of times, and we [haven’t]. So hopefully we learned something today.”