If you want to feel good about your Bruins’ recent run of success, it’s OK. Enjoy the moment. There’s more to like at the moment than after their three-game win streak to start the season.
After winning their fifth straight on Thursday, they sit two games over .500 at 9-7 and they’re in the top of half of the league for goals scored per game (3.19, 14th), something few people would have guessed was possible before the season.
But while the scoring for this team will most likely wax and wane throughout the season, a much more important development is now taking shape.
No longer are opposing forwards finding themselves habitually wide open in the slot to score goalls while Bruin defenders, often bunched up in a corner, stare at each other and wonder ‘What happened?’
Whatever made things click – perhaps it was the old school tongue-lashing new coach Marco Sturm gave them after the 7-5 loss to the Anaheim Ducks that was the last L in their six-game losing streak – they look like a far different team than the one that started the season.
Sturm, who has had no illusions about what his team can and can’t do, is pleased with the way his players are starting to take to his hybrid zone/man system.
“It’s a combination of everything,” said Sturm after the B’s 4-3 win over the Ottawa Senators on Thursday. “It’s the commitment, yes. There’s the structure that allows you to make mistakes but you still have someone who can clean it up. But also, for me, it’s trust. It all goes back to the fact that we all trust each other. Even if you make a mistake or something like that, we know that somebody should be there. And right now that player is (there). It could be a stick, it could be a body, it could be anything. So it’s guys just getting more used to it than anything but, for me, the trust is the biggest thing.”
The players are starting to get more comfortable with the system that at first seemed like advanced calculus to them.
“I think we’re getting better at it, for sure,” said Pavel Zacha, the overtime hero from Thursday and the centerman who has stabilized the second line during the winning streak. “We’re not giving up too much. In the start of the season, we gave up a lot in the middle of the ice and we’re getting better with that every game. We pride ourselves on keeping teams to the outside. We’re doing a better job, mostly, but there’s a lot of room for improvement.”
This team’s margin for error has not been wide. Three of the five games in this streak have gone to extra time and, with a little worse luck, they’d be 2-0-3 in this stretch and still in soul-searching mode.
But if the B’s can play smart, disciplined, detailed and get very good goaltending, they can compete with anyone. They’ve scored wins over Colorado, Carolina and now an Ottawa team that had previously smoked them. One example of that smart play came on the B’s tying goal early in the second period. Andrew Peeke fired what seemed like a low-percentage shot from the top of the circle, but Morgan Geekie never stopped going to the net. Peeke’s shot broke through Linus Ullmark, hit the post and sat in the crease for Geekie to tapped home.
“The one thing with our team that I’m always big on is the play without the puck. I think that’s something that we should be consistent with,” said Sturm. “With the puck, it’s challenging. We don’t have high-end, or a lot of goal scorers, so we have to work for it. Again, these guys tried so hard to (on Thursday). It will be a challenge all year long. The power play is so important for us. But the game without the puck, that should be our bread and butter moving forward for the whole season.”
So, yes, winning for this team has been, and will probably always be, a chore. In only one of the B’s nine wins (their 5-2 victory here over the Islanders) have they had more than a one-goal lead in the final minutes of the game.
And they’ve got to have their game in order as they face a divisional home-and-home against the Toronto Maple Leafs, up north on Saturday and here on Tuesday. The Leafs had gotten off to their usual meh start, but they’ve won three in a row and are second in the league in offense (3.71 goals per game).
But the Bruin players have seemingly embraced their identity as a sort of Lunchpail AC 2.0, the version that probably won’t have 11 20-goal scorers like the original model had in 1977-78.
While most teams give out some sort award to the top player of the game after wins, Sturm beamed when he told reporters after Thursday’s win that they players give out a “Grinder of the Game” award.
“The best part is that it comes from the players, it’s not from me,” said Sturm. “Even a guy like Pasta (David Pastrnak), says, ‘I want it.’ I said ‘OK, you’ve got to work for it.’ ”
And work will have to be the lifeblood of this team if it is to succeed and make the playoffs. Even for one of the most skilled players on the planet.
The Bruins did not practice on Friday, using it as a travel day to Toronto. After losing John Beecher to an upper body injury and both Casey Mittelstadt and Andrew leaving the game briefly on Thursday, there could be a call-up or two Saturday.
