Bruins' Win Streak Snapped at Seven by Nashville

BOSTON - The Bruins' seven-game winning streak came to an end on Tuesday night with a 2-1 loss to the Nashville Predators at TD Garden. The setback also placed on hold Boston's quest to set the club's all-time record for single-season wins (58) and clinch the Presidents' Trophy for the fourth time in team history.

"We just didn't play to our game," said Bruins captain Patrice Bergeron after the Black & Gold fell to 57-12-5. "We didn't play to our standard…I think when you do that, that's the result you're gonna get. It doesn't matter how good you are. I think you have to respect how you want to play the game, and tonight was one of those nights where we kinda did it to ourselves.
"No disrespect, obviously, to [Nashville]. I think they played a great game. They did what they had to do. But we just didn't execute. That's what you're gonna get."
Bruins alternate captain Brad Marchand and coach Jim Montgomery delivered similar descriptions of Boston's performance, saying that the Black & Gold did not "respect" the game, while also lamenting what has been an incredibly strenuous schedule with 12 games over the past 19 days.
"This is probably the toughest schedule I've ever seen or been part of, but we obviously took them lightly," said Marchand. "We seem to get up for the games that - the teams we could potentially face down the road, and I think we just were a little disrespectful of the game tonight against this team.
"Definitely fatigue comes into it, but we're going to run into situations where we're tired moving forward, and we've still got to be able to show up, but it is what it is. Learn from it and move on."
"We're going into our fifth week of four [games] in five [days]," added Montgomery. "You're going to have peaks and valleys with your energy levels, and we try and monitor it the best we can, but the schedule is unforgiving right now so we're going to lay eggs every once in a while."
The Bruins fell behind, 1-0, with 1:49 remaining in the second period on Cody Glass' tally and could not find the equalizer despite a strong charge over the final 20 minutes as Nashville goalie Juuse Saros turned away 35 of the 36 shots he faced. Boston outshot the Predators, 16-4, in the third but Cole Smith found the empty net with 2:19 to go to seal things for Nashville.
"It was better, for sure," Marchand said of the third. "When we're down, we always push. You knew we would, but it was just too late. That's a situation you put yourself in at times when you don't play a full 60, is you get down, and sometimes it's too late to come back. Their goalie made a few big saves tonight, and you give him that opportunity. Just got to be a little better with that moving forward, making sure we play our way and play the right way all the way through."

Power Still Out

The Bruins' power play was, once again, ineffective, posting an 0-for-5 showing against Nashville. Montgomery said that while the coaching staff has made changes in both alignment and personnel, sometimes that is not always the way to fix the issues.
"I don't know, we've changed it up quite a bit in the last month," said Montgomery. "Change isn't always the answer, although it seems like the easiest answer. It's players committing to doing the right thing. We didn't have our A-game tonight.
"It wasn't only the powerplay that stunk tonight, there was a lot of facets of our game that weren't at the level and the standard that we expect. For whatever reason we laid an egg tonight."
Montgomery acknowledged that the nearly two-month drought has certainly crept into the players' heads.
"People are trying to be perfect," he said. "We don't get success right away, we're not recovering pucks, that's when you know that you're not playing fast on the power play. We take a shot and we're not on the rebound or wherever it goes.
"They cleared a lot of pucks after we took shots to the net. When you're on top of your power play, you're converging at the net, you're coming up with those pucks."
Bergeron noted that the Bruins are "forcing plays" and too often failing to generate follow-up opportunities.
"We're disjointed and disconnected," he said. "I think we have to go back to hard and simple. Same thing 5-on-5. The power play is no different. You have to work for loose pucks and retrieve pucks. When you're one and done, it's hard to really capitalize on chances."

Wait, There's More

• David Pastrnak snapped Saros' shutout with just over a second left on the clock, notching his 52nd goal of the season with a spin-around move from the back of the net. Jake DeBrusk and Charlie McAvoy picked up the assists.
• Boston will have another chance to clinch the Presidents' Trophy and secure its record 58th win of the season on Thursday night against Columbus at TD Garden. The Bruins will clinch the league's top seed with a win over the Blue Jackets or a Carolina loss to Detroit.