Bruins lose to Sabres in blowout: ‘We should all be embarrassed’

The Boston Bruins bench couldn’t even look Jeremy Swayman in the eye.

Swayman’s teammates could only stare ahead as their goaltender – who had just been pulled when the Buffalo Sabers took a 6-0 third-period lead in Game 4 of their opening round of the Eastern Conference playoffs on Sunday – bellowed his displeasure with their dismal performance as he headed to the locker room.

Joonas Korpisalo replaced Swayman and the Bruins managed a goal in the 6-1 loss that gave the Sabers a 3-1 series advantage and put Boston on the brink of elimination. Game 5 is Tuesday in Buffalo.

While the Bruins were initially silenced by Swayman’s understandable outburst — the boos and insults from the Boston faithful probably didn’t help matters either — they were forthright in taking most of the credit for Sunday’s debacle.

“Man to man here, if we’re not embarrassed by what just happened, then I don’t know what to say,” Charlie McAvoy said. “We have everything to play from here, and we know we are a much better team than what we just did.”

Boston was dreadful from the start in Game 4, as several turnovers and lazy defense allowed the Sabers to score three goals (from Peyton Krebs, Josh Doan and Zach Benson) in 4:58 to give Buffalo a large lead before the end of the first period.

Bruins coach Marco Sturm called a timeout to try to calm his group down, and it was no use – Bowen Byram nailed another Swayman pass less than five minutes later. Boston limped after 20 minutes and was outshot 19-5 and in a demoralizing 4-0 hole, it had little chance of climbing out.

“Wasted opportunity. Unacceptable,” said David Pastrnak, who was minus-2. “We expect better from ourselves. We are better than that, and we can’t present ourselves like that. The first half is so important. You can’t win and lose games. [like that] and showing up like that in the first half is unacceptable.”

Boston was slightly better in a scoreless second period in which it held a 10-4 advantage in shots. But not a single Bruin could provide goal support for Swayman. By the time Beck Malenstyn and Alex Tuch scored 1:24 apart in the third to end Swayman’s afternoon (with a .793 save percentage), no one could blame the goalie — who didn’t speak to the media after the game — for expressing his frustrations.

“Absolutely [like to see that fire]. At least from one guy, right,” Sturm said of Swayman. “It wasn’t his fault today. I felt bad for him. That’s why we kept it there for a while. Because he’s a fighter. He wants to be there. »

The Bruins were inexplicably unbalanced in every area. Boston was outshot 35-24, went 0-for-1 on the power play and was credited with 17 giveaways. It was such a breathtaking effort that even Sturm couldn’t find words to describe what he witnessed.

“I can’t, I really can’t. I don’t know,” Sturm said. “I really don’t know. If you’re a Boston Bruin playing at home, you should be very excited about playing in a playoff game. [play well]. …I’m embarrassed. We should all be embarrassed. »

As if there wasn’t enough drama, Bruins defenseman Nikita Zadorov decided to shake things up even more late in the third period. In a stunning sequence, Zadorov approached Sabers captain Rasmus Dahlin at center ice during a save and delivered a vicious cross-court check that hit Dahlin hard in the right arm. Zadorov received a five-minute penalty for cross-checking and misconduct. He could face additional discipline, which would leave the Bruins shorthanded for the remainder of the series.

On this point, Sturm was also speechless.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I can’t answer that. Sorry.”

Sabers coach Lindy Ruff was more verbose in expressing her feelings about the attempts to free her team’s captain.

“I understand the emotion because of the way the game went,” Ruff said. “You see that in playoff games. That type of raw emotion, it’s because a player is so frustrated with the game. There’s a lot of banter in the game. It’s not a game you want. I’m pretty sure if it’s the regular season, it could even be a suspension. It could have easily broken Rasmus’ arm with the crosscheck.”

For now, Buffalo has booked its departure from Boston and everything is going according to plan (aside from a still-putrid power play, which went 0 for 3 on Sunday and is an astonishing 0 for 38 since April 2). The Bruins had to lick their wounds and search for answers on how they could put back-to-back home losses behind them and get back into this series.

“It starts with me and the leaders on the ice,” Sturm said. “I can’t expect the kids to turn around and get us out of there. [veterans] are the guys, myself included, who have to take matters into their own hands. »