Bruins blow 2-goal lead, lose to Avs, 4-3

The Bruins were on the verge of notching their signature win of the season at Ball Arena on Wednesday night. Instead, they became just another notch on the Colorado Avalanche’s belt in the Avs’ increasingly special season.

The B’s blew a two-goal third-period lead, the equalizer coming with 36.5 seconds left in regulation from Gabriel Landeskog with their goalie Darcy Kuemper pulled, and Cale Makar scored a power-play goal with 1:59 left in overtime to lift the Avs to a 4-3 win.

It was the Avs’ 17th straight win at home and eighth consecutive victory overall. And it was darn painful for the Bruins. The loss squandered an outstanding 37-save performance by Linus Ullmark.

The B’s took a 3-1 lead into the third but they allowed the expected wave from Colorado to turn into a tsunami by playing too cautiously, in coach Bruce Cassidy’s estimation. The Avs outshot them 18-7 in the third and, when you spend that amount of time in your own zone, something bad is bound to happen.

With 8:14 left, it did. Samuel Girard threw a left-point shot toward the net, hitting Curtis Lazar out high, bouncing off the ice a couple of times before hitting the near post and getting past Ullmark.

“The biggest thing for me is watching us play the whole period in our own end because we couldn’t execute a breakout pass,” said Cassidy. “You’ve got to keep playing hockey. They’re too good. You’re going to get fatigued and sure enough, they start winning some faceoffs and we’re pulling it out of our net. You’ve got to keep playing. We’re usually pretty good at that. And when you don’t play winning hockey. Protect the middle of the ice. They got a lucky goal, but their defensemen are good at getting pucks through to the net and we saw it on three of the goals. We knew that, so we’ve got to protect the middle of the ice to force them to shoot through us. At the end of the day, we didn’t get it done. We didn’t get it done. We typically do in those situations. We paid the price.”

On the equalizer, Landeskog was able to somehow deflect Brad Marchand’s clear attempt into the middle of the ice it to Valeri Nichushkin. He relayed it to Nazem Kadri, who spotted the recovered Landeskog on the right side for the backdoor goal.

“It’s unfortunate we weren’t able to battle that puck out,” said Cassidy. “They made a play when they had to. They got fortunate on the second goal to give them some life, but they made their plays when they had to.”

Then in OT, Mike Reilly tripped Nichushkin and, with 13 seconds left on the power play, Makar sizzled a shot under the bar for the win.

This one had an odd start.

The B’s found themselves on the kill early when an unfortunate incident happened just 2:22 into the game. As Avs’ star Nathan MacKinnon broke the puck out of the Colorado zone, Taylor Hall hit him with a check to the shoulder. Because MacKinnon’s stick was up high, it rode up and hit him square in the nose. He went down hard, bleeding profusely, and Hall was originally assessed a five-minute major.

Upon further review, it was dropped down to a two-minute minor — rules stipulate that it can’t be completely rescinded — and MacKinnon was done for the game. Hall, despite the virtual legality of the hit, would be a marked man the rest of the night.

The B’s killed that without allowing a shot, as well as a later tripping penalty on Charlie McAvoy. But the Avs took the lead at 11:25 after a dump-in. Andre Burakovsky won the puck in the corner and fed Kurtis MacDermid in the high slot for the tough defenseman’s first goal of the year that banged in off the post to Ullmark’s right. It was the fifth straight game in which the B’s allowed the first goal.

But the B’s bounced back with three straight goals in the second, with the Avs’ ire working against them.

First, Jake DeBrusk evened the game at 7:10 with a snipe off a 2-on-1.

Then they scored two in 1:15, thanks in part to the Avs losing their cool. With Burakovsky already in the box for tripping, Erik Johnson decided to crosscheck Hall not once, not twice, but three times and ref Steve Kozari had no choice but to call it. That gave the B’s a full minute 5-on-3, and Charlie Coyle gave the B’s the lead on a put-back of a McAvoy shot.

Just as Johnson was stepping out of the box, Marchand took a drop pass from David Pastrnak and fired a pea off Kuemper’s far shoulder for a 3-1 lead at 13:31 of the second.

But the good times would soon end.

“They’re a good team for a reason,” said Coyle. “They’re not just going to sit back and let us have that in the third. I think we expected a push. We wanted to keep playing the same way and they came hard. It’s unfortunate. Linus played such a great game and he deserved better from us in the third.”