BOSTON -- It was an adventurous Saturday for the newly configured forward line with David Krejci, Milan Lucic and Tyler Seguin.
They continued their offensive rampage by supplying both of Bostons goals, but they were also on the ice for the definitive play that meant the difference between winning and losing in a 32 defeat at the hands of the New York Islanders on Saturday afternoon.
Tyler Seguin and Milan Lucic were both chasing Islanders defenseman Andrew MacDonald in what appeared to be an icing call against the Bruins with less than five minutes to go in the third period.
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But the refs never called icing as the puck skittered past MacDonalds stick, and both Seguin and Lucic stopped skating on the play. The Islanders took full advantage of the momentarily disoriented Bs defense, and suddenly John Tavares had tipped a Matt Moulson blast past Tim Thomas for the game-winning score.
It was too bad because Tavares goal wiped out a beautiful display of speed and backhanded shooting close to the net when Zdeno Chara connected with Seguin on a bank pass off a face-off that freed him up for his 22nd goal of the season.
Seguin jumped into the arms of the 6-foot-9 Chara for a spontaneous hug that made it seem that the Bruins might just win consecutive games for the first time in seven weeks.
Thomas was right on the post-icing play as soon as the Isles continued it up the ice, but at that point they had speed, momentum and at least a couple of Boston forwards stuck up ice.
As soon as MacDonald picked it up somewhere near their blue line, I just forgot about it for the time-being and just went back to the play and worried about whether there was a messed up call there or not later, said Thomas.
Its a shame as the LucicKrejciSeguin has been offensively brilliant with six goals produced in each of the last two games, but there is a downside to that forward combination as well. There will be defensive breakdowns on the ice without Patrice Bergeron to cover for a 20-year-old Seguin still developing the two-way player that he wants to eventually become.
That was the case on Saturday afternoon when the game was decided on a single play, and Seguin was admirably taking responsibility afterward for failing to play until he heard the refs whistle.
I didnt touch it. Their guy touched it and we didnt hear the linesman say anything so we all kind of stopped. I guess in the end its kind of our fault, said Seguin. Usually people always say you play right until the whistle is blown and we didnt do that.
The one third-period mistake doesnt wipe out the 12 shots on goal, two goals produced and half-dozen Grade A scoring chances created by a forward line humming with confidence and top-end speed. But it serves as a good reminder that even a moments hesitation can cost a team like the Bruins thats going to have to work for everything they get as an undermanned hockey club.
Whether its a mistake or not, we make mistakes and the refs are entitled to make mistakes too. But that puck still went by two of our guys, and theyve got to take the blame. Weve got to play to the whistle, said Julien. Maybe it was icing, but we still could have handled it better than we did.
In the end, youve got to look at it and say, 'Yeah, maybe it was icing.' It looked like McDonald touched it, but at the same time, that doesnt excuse us from not playing it through. There was no whistle blown.