Bruins Drop Road Trip Opener Against Avs in OT

DENVER - The Bruins were merely 37 seconds away from their marquee victory of the season on Wednesday night. But the Avalanche flexed their muscles and showed why they're the league's top team, scoring twice in the third period to overcome a two-goal deficit, including Gabriel Landeskog's tying marker at 19:23 of the final frame to send things to overtime.
Cale Makar ended it on the power play at 3:01 of the extra session, sending the Bruins to a 4-3 defeat in the opener of their three-game road trip. Colorado, meanwhile, won their eighth consecutive game and their 17th straight at Ball Arena.

"They're a good team for a reason," said Charlie Coyle. "They're not just gonna sit back and let us have that in the third. I think we expected a push. We wanted to keep playing the same way. They came hard and it's unfortunate. Linus [Ullmark] played such a great game and he deserved better from us in that third."
Ullmark, who finished the night with 37 saves on 41 shots, was immense at times in the third period as the Avalanche swarmed and outshot the Black & Gold, 18-7. Samuel Girard's tally with 8:14 to go cut the Bruins' lead to 3-2.
"Good teams are gonna have those pushes. It's up to us," said Coyle. "I know we're a good team. It's up to us to push back and have the next shift, whoever's up next, sway it in our favor and play simple, put that puck behind them, make them go back for it and then we play and we forecheck and we have a shift down there and kind of turn the tide that way.
"That's what you've got to do. Sometimes you've just got to take a deep breath, can't get caught up in the storm or whatever you want to call it. It's just up to us to compete and hold, bend don't break, that mentality, and we do what we can do down there."

Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy expressed a similar sentiment as he lamented the Bruins lack of execution in the defensive zone. After potting three straight goals in the second period (Jake DeBrusk, Coyle, and Brad Marchand all scored) to open up a 3-1 lead after 40 minutes, Boston struggled mightily throughout the third to gain much traction out of their own end.
"There's a number of things," Cassidy said when asked to assess how the Bruins squandered a two-goal advantage in the third. "The biggest thing, for me, was watching us play the whole period in our own end because we couldn't execute a breakout pass. We continually iced it, off the glass and out. You've got to keep playing hockey. They're too good. You're gonna get fatigued. Sure enough, they start winning some face-offs and we're pulling it out of our net.
"You can't get cute, you've got to keep playing. We're usually pretty good at that. And then when you don't, you've got to play winning hockey, protect the middle of the ice…at the end of the day, we didn't get it done…like we typically do in those situations, and we paid the price."