The Bruins spotted one of the NHL’s best teams with one of its best goalies a three-goal lead and the result was predictable.
Boston started its five-game western road trip with a dud as they allowed five third-period goals and fell to Winnipeg, 8-1, Tuesday at Canada Life Center, snapping their four-game winning streak.
They’ll dip back below the border for a game at Seattle at 10 p.m. on Thursday.
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The Jets power play abused the Bruins, scoring three times on six attempts.
After the Bruins had a solid start to the period against the Jets, who have been very good at the Canada Life Center, Vladislav Namestnikov put Winnipeg up 1-0, on the power play 12:09 into the period.
Then for the fifth time in the last seven games, the Bruins gave up a goal in the final two minutes of the first or second period. Mark Scheifele took advantage of a sloppy Bruins breakout with 1:59 left to make it 2-0 after the first.
That was bad news for the Bruins as the Jets came into the game with wins in all nine games where they led after the first period.
The Jets stretched their edge to 3-0 on a power play early in the second. After a David Pastrnak high sticking penalty negated a Bruins’ man advantage after 49 seconds, Scheifele scored on their short 5-on-4 on the back end with 12:58 left in the second.
Pastrnak got one back on a Bruins power play. He ripped a one-timer from Charlie McAvoy past Connor Hellebucyk just over two minutes later.
But any momentum that goal created was erased early in the third when Kyle Connor one-timed a shot by Jeremy Swayman to make it 4-1.
From there it got ugly. After two more Jets, goals, the Bruins and Jets paired off for three fights, including two in the same stoppage, which earned Mark Kastelic and Jordan Stanley game misconducts.
The Jets had five majors all year coming in and had three in the third. But after the fighting Winnipeg went back to scoring adding two more to give the Bruins their worst loss of the year.
Swayman, who gave up a career-worst eight goals, made 27 saves.
