Bruins' Eight-Game Point Streak Dies in Raleigh, 2-1. Sturm 'Didn't Mind Our Game.' Blues Up Next
Pavel Zacha scored on the power play 91 seconds in and Jeremy Swayman made 28 saves, but Sebastian Aho beat him in the third and Pyotr Kochetkov went 8-0. Boston is 9-3-1.
The Bruins' eight-game point streak ended Tuesday night in Raleigh, a 2-1 loss to a Carolina team that hasn't figured out how to lose with Pyotr Kochetkov in net, according to the NHL.com recap.
Boston started the way Marco Sturm wants. On a power play at 1:31 of the first, David Pastrnak made a backhand pass to Elias Lindholm, who spun in the left circle and fed Pavel Zacha for a tap-in at the right post. "I think we had a good start. That's something we want to be better at," Zacha said.
Carolina tied it late in the period. With 52 seconds left, Nikolaj Ehlers stripped Frederic Brunet below the goal line on the forecheck and found Jackson Blake, who skated out of the corner and got it around Jeremy Swayman's left pad with the goalie sprawled. Then at 10:19 of the third, William Carrier tipped a Andrei Svechnikov pass to Sebastian Aho on the rush, and Aho reached to his backhand to chip it under Swayman's blocker. 2-1, and that was it.
Swayman was good, 28 saves. Kochetkov only had to make 14, and he's now 8-0 to start the season. "It's just my job, I don't know what to say," Kochetkov said about the streak.
"Overall, I didn't mind our game," Sturm said. "We had a good jump right away from the start. There's small details, puck management, that they did just a little bit better than us. Other than that, I thought we played a pretty good road game." Carolina's Jaccob Slavin said the Hurricanes' late penalty kill against Boston's power play was the difference: "It's never fun to kill penalties, especially against a power play like that late in the game."
Before Tuesday, the Bruins were 7-0-1 in their previous eight. They're 9-3-1 now. Carolina's 10-2-2.
Dez's take: Fourteen shots against a guy who's 8-0 is not how you end his streak. The Bruins had the lead, had the power play, and then let Carolina tilt the ice for two periods, which is what Aho said out loud. A 9-3-1 start is real. But the small details Sturm keeps mentioning are the whole thing in October.
What we still don't know: whether Sturm changes anything on the second power-play unit before the St. Louis Blues come in next.
