When I used to sit at my desk in the northwest corner of the house my father built in East Walpole, Mass., drawing my pictures of the old Boston Garden, imaginary expansions thereof, Fenway Park, the old Foxboro (then Schaefer Stadium), Bruins tickets (I was good at it – the one time my work was tested, two kids got into see Jethro Tull), the Boston and New York skylines, MBTA subway cars and stations … literally anything that would remind me of the mysterious thrill of jumping on the bus 50 minutes to Forest Hills and 20 more minutes to North Station via the old, elevated Orange Line – having grown up in Hyde Park, my dad called it the “EL” – all my weird daydreams on how Bruins hockey might change over future decades never included a football stadium in Florida.
The day before the Bruins met the Tampa Bay Lightning in the Stadium Series, the weather was blustery and somewhat rainy. A tent covered the rink where the players practiced (see my 10 seconds of award-losing cinematography).
But that happened last night, didn’t it.
It’s the same feeling I get thinking back to the film we watched at East (now Bird Middle) Junior High School sometime around 1970. A man in a long white coat with a clipboard says that someday our whole life will revolve around computers. The one he was working on took up one side of a long room.
He entered some information, walked past some more tall panels with blinking lights like the Star Trek Enterprise and … finally … voila: 4+2=6, spit out like a receipt at the gas pump.
Two instant reactions by a slow-on-the-uptake kid: 1. Why do I need a computer to tell me that? And, No. 2. How are we going to fit that thing into the living room?
Little did I know even when the Bruins were parading the Stanley Cup around Rogers Arena ice in Vancouver that the photo and video above would emanate from a computer that fits into my cell phone.
The man in the long white coat was right. None of us, however, could predict what it was going to look like. We still can’t, but former Bruins first-round draft pick (1983) Nevin Markwart was on hand for the Bruins’ centennial-season festivities of 2023-24, and he was considered a computer whiz while rehabbing chronic shoulder injuries as an undersized plugger not quite blessed with the sturdiness of, say, Viktor Arvidsson, much less his fellow left shot Brad Marchand.
Markwart is still thinking ahead, and he told a small group of us that NHL revenue is about to go through the roof as the league identifies new sources (that also means the salary cap…). For instance, a bench-view camera, something like a GoPro on players’ helmets. (Jeremy Swayman wore one for Saturday’s practice – imagine how that would have captured Andrei Vasilevskiy’s left fist saying hello.)
So crazy things keep happening.
This isn’t the first time I’ve seen a team blow a 5-1 lead by the way. The Bruins were in deep against the California Golden Seals out on the west coast one night in the 1971-72 season. Bobby Orr gave the team a little pep talk between the second and third periods, and the B’s rallied to win 7-5.
Nothing like this should have happened last night at Raymond James Stadium.
“I don’t blame (the officials). It always comes back to us, and if you give a guy like Kucherov 10 minutes on the powerplay, you know … that’s on us,” said Bruins Coach Marco Sturm after the game. “They were just better than us after the whistle. I don’t think they were better than us today hockey-wise, they were better than us after the whistle.”
Discipline has not come easily for the 2025-26 Boston Bruins, but Rink Rap generally hasn’t had a problem with the learning curve. The way the players on this team fight for each other reminds me of what happened in 2007-08 when Claude Julien came aboard and allowed rowdy responses and encouraged physical play. He didn’t seem to mind losing a few games sending the league a message.
It’s just important not to let the message get twisted by what went on last night in Tampa. Paul Maurice, no doubt, has already watched this game twice, especially the unraveling of the Bruins in the second period, and taken notes.
To be fair to the Bruins, it all began when Charlie McAvoy was whistled for hitting back after he was roughed from behind on the side boards at the bench area. The Bruins were leading 5-1, which brings us to this point.
It’s nothing new, as the greatest street-hockey player I ever met, Mikey Dowd from Sharon, Mass. – incredible – said back in the early ’80s, “they don’t call it fair, they call it even.”
The refs have been bad in general this season at making sympathy calls, and the first one vs. McAvoy for retaliation was only rivaled by the utter lack of calls vs. Tampa Bay as the opportunistic Lightning clawed their way back into the game.
When it was 5-1, the Lightning got favors, when it was 5-2 the Bruins got completely ignored when they were fouled. When it was 5-3, the Bruins lost all composure and became like a bad baseball team that couldn’t get an out, and it caught up to them. Sean Kuraly closing his hand on the puck was the penalty that tipped the scales away from “this will pass” to “ruh roh.” The Bruins were almost out of 5v3 hell and probably would have killed the final 25 seconds of 5v4 had Tampa scored. But Kuraly’s penalty breathed new life into the expiring episode, and by second intermission the game had closed to 5-4.
I like the fact that Sturm, like Julien in 2007-08, encourages his team to stick up for each other, even if it costs them a few games. But they played the dumb wrestler along with the dumb officials. They have to get smarter in the heat of battle.
We’ll see when the season ends on April 14, but Rink Rap is of the belief that it is better for the Bruins to have blown Sunday’s Stadium Series game than to survive it. Otherwise, they might never learn what they desperately need to understand about how the scoreboard biases officials against teams with big leads, and how they view retaliation as usurping the league’s authority – the players who hits back cannot get even (find another moment to strike first and let the opponent choose whether to retaliate).
“Sometimes you have to go through those failures,” said Sturm, who praised his team’s overall effort and especially the hockey played by Fraser Minten and Marat Khusnutdinov after being thrust into top-six centering roles. “I’m very, very happy with how we are as a team right now.”
Sunrise next, then the Olympic break.
Swayman seemed no worse for wear after taking a solid shot to the jaw from Vasilevskiy, and the two showed mutual respect as soon as their confrontation had ended and even more so at the end of the postgame handshake.
As for the savvy Lightning, they remind Rink Rap of the Bruins circa 1993, when they had a prolific core of veteran players supported by an emerging second tier of young talent. They weren’t the team they were in 1990 before the core had gotten worn down by multiple high-mileage seasons and the support came from veteran sources. Adam Oates (45-97-142 in 84GP) had a career year, most of it without Cam Neely (13GP: 11-7-18!), but 25-year-old rookie Joey Juneau went 32-70-102 on his left wing and 26-year-old rookie Dmitri Kvartalnov 30-42-72 on his right wing. Despite a crazy 16-2-0 finish, the Bruins were swept out of the opening round of the playoffs by 38-36-10 Buffalo. Go figure.
This season the Eastern Conference has been a dogfight, but the one thing that bodes well for the 32-20-4 Bruins is their game is in a much better place in 2026 than it was in the 2025 portion of the season. They adhere to the methodology. Each line understands the details of what they must do well in order to succeed. This is particularly true of the second line, and that’s why Sturm slotted his best defensive forward, Minten, between Arvidsson and Casey Mittelstadt. Without Zacha patrolling the middle of the rink with his long stride and relentless effort, that line was a disaster in October. Minten was the closest thing to replication at the center position.
I’ll also throw this into the mix: Getting Morgan Geekie back to the off wing (right shot playing left wing) has made it so much easier for the sniper to find his scoring areas. Note that Geekie’s struggles this season began when he was shifted to his “natural” side (RW). Yes, Sturm was astute to point out that Geekie had become preoccupied with finishing and lost some of the focal points that got him into finishing positions, but watch your Geekie highlights and see how many shots go in from the right side of the ice. Not many. Geekie scores from around the net, the slot, and the left circle.
Follow your favorite beat writers to learn where the Bruins stand with centermen Elias Lindholm and Pavel Zacha as they approach the final game before the Olympic break against the Panthers on Wednesday night (TNT, HBOmax, 98.5 The Sports Hub). Brad Marchand and Anton Lundell are day to day and will miss tonight’s game between the Panthers and the Buffalo Sabres (7 pm, ESPN+ if you’ve got it).
Rink Rap with Mick Colageo 