Four issues plaguing Bruins as they slump into holiday break originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston
The Boston Bruins have reached their three-day holiday break with their worst losing streak in four years.
The B’s lost 3-2 to the Minnesota Wild on Saturday night, extending their skid to four games. It’s the team’s longest losing streak since Dec. 7-12 of 2019. The Bruins ultimately won the Presidents’ Trophy during that COVID-shortened regular season, but it remains to be seen whether the current roster has that same ability.
The truth is there have been issues plaguing the Bruins for over a month. They are giving up way too many shot attempts, shots on net and scoring chances. Several players are not producing enough offensively. These problems have largely been nullified by elite goaltending through 32 games, but at some point these mistakes begin to result in losses, and we’re starting to see that right now.
The Bruins are still in a pretty good spot, though. They own the Eastern Conference’s second-best record at 19-7-6, which gives them a four-point advantage over the Toronto Maple Leafs for first place in the Atlantic Division. Boston’s early-season dominance gave the team a little bit of a cushion to have a losing streak and not lose its grip on first place. But that margin is getting very thin, and without immediate improvement, the Leafs could pass the Bruins pretty soon.
Here are four specific issues hurting the Bruins as they enter the break.
1) Blown leads
The Bruins have had trouble protecting leads lately. They’ve blown a third-period lead in three of their last five games. They’ve surrendered a lead of some kind in four of the last five games.
Boston was the best team in the league last season when leading after two periods with a .940 win percentage. When the playoffs started, those third-period leads all of a sudden weren’t as rock solid. The B’s blew a third-period lead in both Game 6 and Game 7 of their first-round series against the Florida Panthers and were eliminated.
This season, they are 13-1-5 when leading after two periods, which looks OK, but it also represents the third-worst win percentage (.684) when leading going into the third period.
For whatever reason, the Bruins’ execution and compete level, particularly in front of their own net, have been lacking in the third period this season. The B’s have a minus-1 goal differential (36 for, 37 against) in third periods, which is way down from their league-leading plus-54 goal…