Bruins fall to Sabres, 4-2

Oh, was that ever not fun.

Or it was fun for the first two periods, anyway. Then the wheels came off for the Bruins, who got the loss in the first game of their longest road trip this season.

The first period was up and down for the B's, who came out with a ton of jump but slowed down a bunch after Drew Stafford's goal only three minutes in. They improved as the period went on, though, with the Horton-Krecji-Lucic line and the Marchand-Bergeron-Seguin line having some solid shifts. Marchand drew a penalty towards the end of the first lead directly to a Bruins powerplay, which in turn lead to the first ever NHL goal for one Dougie Hamilton.

The second was all Bruins, and then. Then the third happened, which was the very opposite of how the Bruins normally play their game, and ended with three unanswered goals by the Sabres. The Bruins best players were miles from good that period, across the board.

Let's break a couple of things down:

The good:

+ DOUGIE HAMILTON, Y'ALL. A goal (pp!) and an assist and pretty excited about it, I can't lie.

+ Man, the Bruins really just excel at faceoffs - and not just Patrice Bergeron (who once again was over 70% at the dot): Krecji also had a dominant night.

+ That first power play leading up to Hamilton's goal looked not terrible. Progress!

+ The pk continues to be one of the Bruins greatest strengths. Despite there not being a ton of penalties called tonight, the one in the first period, with the Sabres up by one, was a critical one for the Bs, and they rocked it. For all his offensive woes so far this season, Chris Kelly (along with Bergeron/Chara/Campbell) sure knows how kill them penalties!

+ The Bruins had a ton of chances, especially during the second. Ryan Miller was the only reason that the Bs didn't go up by 5 by the end of that period.

The ugly:

+ On the other hand, I hated the third period and everything it chose to be.

+ Wasn't especially thrilled with the defensive breakdown by the Bruins on the Sabres' first goal.

+ There's been a lot of talk of late about Andrew Ference and his upcoming contract negotiations. Tonight's game definitely didn't help his cause. He was a minus-2 and generally looked rough.

+ While we're on the topic of D, Chara looked...un-Chara-esque, especially in the third. Weird.

+ Not a good night for Khudobin. Not all on him, obviously (see the above defense notes), but he definitely didn't look as solid as he had previously.

+ Basically, they blew it. The goals haven't been coming for the Bruins by bucketfuls yet this year. That's ok, so long as your defensive work makes up for it. It didn't in the third period tonight.

Eh, it's one game. A sucky one, but still. On to Winnipeg, where I bet we will see a determined bunch of players looking to put this game far, far behind them.