Sturm explains his unorthodox choice for Bruins’ shootout order

Boston Bruins

“I thought he was going to do it again, and he didn’t. So that’s why I picked him. So that’s on me.”

The Bruins did skate off the ice with at least one point secured in the standings on Saturday night.

Unfortunately, that “loser point” was the byproduct of a painful 5-4 defeat at the hands of the Canucks, with Boston coming up short in a seven-round shootout after failing to land a knockout punch against Vancouver. 

Beyond the pain of letting a third-period slip away against a team that traded away its franchise star in Quinn Hughes a week ago, the Bruins and head coach Marco Sturm had several second-guesses that loomed large in Saturday’s defeat.

In particular, Sturm’s choice of participants for the Bruins’ extended shootout raised plenty of eyebrows following the loss.

In Boston’s first three rounds, Sturm opted for a few familiar faces in Casey Mittelstadt, David Pastrnak, and Marat Khusnutdinov — a trio of skilled forwards with soft hands and the ability to get Canucks goalie Kevin Lankinen to bite with an array of dekes and dangles.

But after those three couldn’t beat Lankinen — and Jeremy Swayman turned aside all three of the Canucks’ attempts — Sturm selected Andrew Peeke for the fourth round. 

It was a curious choice, considering that Peeke is a stay-at-home defenseman who is usually far down the list of viable shootout options on this roster.

Peeke did score the game-tying goal at 16:16 in the third period, but lighting the lamp isn’t necessarily Peeke’s forte out on the ice. Following his third tally of the season on Saturday, Peeke has just 14 goals across 345 career games in the NHL.

Peeke was unable to cash in that opportunity, with the Canucks eventually converting off a Liam Ohren tally in the seventh round. 

Sturm opted for both Mikey Eyssimont and Elias Lindholm in the fifth and sixth rounds before turning to the NHL’s second-leading goal scorer, Morgan Geekie, in the seventh round in hopes of extending the extra frame even further.

But Lankinen turned aside Geekie’s attempt to close out Boston’s second-straight loss — both coming on home ice.

Postgame, Sturm was asked about why he opted for Peeke in the fourth round of the shootout. 

“We practice all the time,” Sturm said. “He does one move and he did it really well. Not just once, a few times. I thought he was going to do it again, and he didn’t. So that’s why I picked him. So that’s on me.”

The Bruins have largely benefitted from some of Sturm’s “gut” decisions with his lineup, be it putting youngsters like Fraser Minten and Khusnutdinov on the ice ahead of overtime tallies — or reshuffling the forward corps en route to balancing scoring outputs. 

 But on Saturday, Sturm’s unorthodox approach to the shootout wasn’t able to push Boston over the edge in a frustrating loss to a team well outside of the playoff picture in the Western Conference. 

 

Conor Ryan is a staff writer covering the Bruins, Celtics, Patriots, and Red Sox for Boston.com, a role he has held since 2023.