Haggerty: This Bruins loss hurts

Bruins fall to Stafford's Sabres, 3-2

Lucic calls ref 'a joke,' pays the price

Haggerty: This loss could haunt the B's

Notes: Seguin vs. Paille?

By Joe Haggerty
CSNNE.com

BUFFALO – This was the kind of game that will haunt a hockey team.

The Bruins' 3-2 loss to the Sabres Wednesday could have been avoided countless times throughout 60 frustrating minutes at the HSBC Arena.

There wasn't one goat at fault. Instead, the blame could be spread to almost everyone on the ice, making it a true team loss.

Start with Shawn Thornton, who had a costly turnover breaking through the neutral zone with an attempted pass to Brad Marchand. Thornton's miscue led to Buffalo's tying goal just 32 seconds after Michael Ryder had given Boston the lead.

Talk about a gut punch.

Thornton's "fourth-line pass," coupled with Johnny Boychuk's flat-footed defense in front of the Boston net, allowed Derek Roy and Drew Stafford to rapidly hook up for their second of three goals.

"That was the turning point," said coach Claude Julien. "What we needed to do . . . after we scored [was] to keep control of the game. But there were two or three mistakes on that second goal where we didn't react very well."

That one giveaway marred an otherwise excellent game by Boston's fourth line as Thornton, Marchand and Gregory Campbell finished with 12 shots on net, sprinkled with plenty of good, blue collar work in the attack zone.

Thornton admirably stood up and accepted blame for the miscue, as would be expected from one of the team's leaders.

"I'll take full responsibility for that. It's my fault," said Thornton. "We're on the ice because we're supposed to be stronger on pucks. Ninety-nine percent of the time we are, but I really thought I shot it hard enough off the wall to get it to [Marchand] – and it ended up in the back of our net.

"Our line – and me in particular – can't let that happen. We're supposed to be trusted out there and we can't let it happen."

That goal was a back-breaker, but the game-winner came four minutes later after another in a series of controversial calls. It looked like Brad Marchand had given the Bruins a 3-2 lead, but it was waved off when both Thornton and Gregory Campbell made contact with Sabres goalie Ryan Miller outside of his crease. The goalie-interference call against Thornton was surprising, given that Miller was venturing well outside of his protective crease.

Opinions aside, O'Rourke called it a penalty . . . and it led to Stafford's third goal in his natural hat trick evening.

There were other issues, as well.

A tough boarding call on Lucic after dumping Paul Gaustad in the first period gave the Sabres a power play, and the penalty-killing unit of Blake Wheeler, Patrice Bergeron, Dennis Seidenberg and Andrew Ference simply lost it.

The Sabres ripped off five straight shots against Tuukka Rask, who scrambled for three saves along with a crossbar shot for Derek Roy before Stafford finally finished with a scoring effort on yet another rebound.

In fact, when the Bruins scored each of their goals on the night, the defense folded over and allowed Buffalo to answer less than two minutes afterward both times.

The drops in concentration prevented the B's from ever truly seizing control of the game, and opened the door for blaming the game officials – who were clearly far from perfect.

Lucic took a unsportsmanlike-conduct penalty for yapping at the referee from the bench in the final two minutes, giving Buffalo a power play at a time when the B's had less than 120 seconds to tie the game. Regardless of whether or not it was justified -- and there's much to be said against an official who would make such a game-altering call over a player's verbal tirade with less than two minutes remaining in a one-goal affair -- Julien correctly pointed out afterwards that Lucic, and all the Bruins, have to be more disciplined in that situation.

Then there were the usual suspects on offense who never got going.

The entire Bruins power play took the first two periods as some kind of working personal days, and passively saucered away a 5-on-3 in the second period while passing up shots on net. Proven power-play performers like Zdeno Chara and Marc Savard need to step up in those situations – and they simply have not.

Lucic was held without a shot on net and Nathan Horton managed only a couple of scoring opportunities while skating through one of his quiet efforts.

Savard registered only a pair of giveaways on the stat sheet in 15:14 of ice time in the most invisible performance of the night.

Julien put Savard with Lucic and Horton in the second period to see if he could spark any of the parties involved, but he seemed to think better of it in the third.

Worst of all, the Bruins didn't truly bring the fire-and-brimstone physicality until just as the final buzzer had sounded.

Once the game was over Chara and Miller bumped each other, and that escalated into a pair of notable moments: Chara suffering a scrape on the end of his nose while scrapping with Gaustad, and Savard racing back from the bench area to stand up for his teammates as things escalated.

It was a shining example of "too little, too late" from a group of hockey players that are beginning to appear like they feel they can turn things on in the third period when they need it. That's no way to play, and blaming the referees certainly doesn’t help matters either.

It's a shame because the Montreal Canadiens lost, and the Bruins could have arrived into the Bell Centre on Thursday in a Northeast Division tie with the hated Habs -- and a chance to play for first place. Instead the Bruins fumbled it away and are all still looking up as Les Habitants.

Good and bad calls will cancel each other out over the course of the season. But two points frittered away on a forgettable Wednesday night in Buffalo could come back to haunt this Bruins team when it matters most in the first few weeks of April.

Joe Haggerty can be reached at jhaggerty@comcastsportsnet.com. Follow Joe on Twitter at http://twitter.com/HackswithHaggs