Bruins' inability to win important home playoff games is perplexing

Bruins' inability to win important home playoff games is perplexing originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston

BOSTON -- The Bruins have largely underachieved over the last 15 years despite winning more regular season games than any other team and playing in the most playoff games of any team since 2008-09.

There are many reasons why the Bruins haven't won another Stanley Cup since 2011, and near the top of the list is an inability to win big games at TD Garden.

Home ice is supposed to be an advantage. It's the reason players give great effort during the grind of the regular season. You get four out of seven games in every playoff series at home, plus the benefit of last line change, in addition to the support of your home fans.

But the Garden ice has been anything but an advantage for the Bruins in recent years.

Tuesday night's 2-1 overtime loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs was the latest example of the Bruins not being able to close out a series at home. The Bruins had a great opportunity to eliminate the Leafs, who were without their best player in Auston Matthews and started a goalie in Joseph Woll who had never beaten the B's in his career.

And yet the Bruins inexplicably got off to a horrendous start, highlighted by multiple icings, sloppy puck management, tons of faceoff losses and very little offense -- just two shots and two scoring chances in the first 20 minutes.

"We weren't good enough. Simple as that," Bruins head coach Jim Montgomery said of his team's slow start in Game 5. "Toronto came out ready to play and took it to us. We weren't ready to match their desperation."

The Bruins have won just two of their last seven home playoff games. After winning Game 1 against the Florida Panthers last season, the Bruins lost their final three home games, including Game 5 and Game 7 defeats in overtime. A similar scenario happened in the 2019 Stanley Cup Final against the St. Louis Blues -- a Game 1 victory followed by three defeats on home ice, including Game 7.

The B's have lost their last four Game 5s on home ice. Since winning the Cup in 2011, the Bruins are 3-4 in Game 7s at home, and all of those series wins came against the Leafs.

The Bruins are 18-16 at home in the playoffs since the start of 2018, compared to 17-15 on the road during that span (excluding the 2020 COVID bubble playoffs). They are 6-9 since 2012 in home playoff games in which they could eliminate the opponent. They've actually lost their last four such games.

The Leafs have their own playoff demons to put to rest Thursday night in Game 6. They've lost six consecutive home playoff games dating back to the first round of the 2023 playoffs. The Bruins played their two-best games of the series in Toronto, earning impressive victories in Games 3 and 4.

There's a lot of pressure on the Bruins to avoid blowing a 3-1 series lead in back-to-back years. But unlike last season, there's a ton of pressure on their opponent, too. The Leafs are under tremendous pressure given their recent playoff failures and the roster shakeup that could come this offseason with another early postseason exit.

The Bruins are a really good team and have been for more than a decade. But if they're going to be a true Stanley Cup contender in the near future, they have to figure out how to make home ice a true advantage.

“We saw an opportunity that we missed, and we’re not going to let that happen again,” Bruins goalie Jeremy Swayman said after Game 5. “The motivation is completely internal, and it’s contagious in this locker room. We’ll be a different team come Thursday.”