The Bruins got their top offensive player back for their 5-2 win over the St. Louis Blues on Tuesday.
Will they be getting back their best defenseman for Thursday’s tilt against the Winnipeg Jets?
Coach Marco Sturm told reporters in Winnipeg on Wednesday that he wasn’t ready to say that McAvoy will return against the Jets, but McAvoy did lead the stretch in practice, which is often the tell-tale sign that a player is about to return.
“We were hoping he was going to get a game or two out of this road trip, so we will decide (Thursday),” said Sturm.
McAvoy has been out since suffering a broken jaw when he took a Noah Dobson slapper off the face on Nov. 15. At the time, he weighed about 215 pounds but, thanks to the liquid diet he was on, he dropped below 200 pounds. He said on Monday he’s been gaining it back bit by bit and that he gained back approximately half the weight he lost. He’s been wearing a bubble and jaw protector in practice.
A McAvoy return would present a good problem for Sturm. As the Pastrnak return sent Mikey Eyssimont to the press box for the time being, a defenseman would have to come out.
The easiest thing to do would be to take out Victor Soderstrom, drop Andrew Peeke to the third pairing with Mason Lohrei and pair McAvoy with Hampus Lindholm. That would leave the successful pairing of Nikita Zadorov and Jonathan Aspirot together. They are both tied for the team lead at plus-8.
On the other hand, Soderstrom has played well, albeit in a small sample size (three games, one assist, plus-3), and there’s a chance the B’s have some found money in the 2019 11th overall pick, for whom they traded after he went back home for a season and was voted the best defenseman in the Swedish Hockey League last season.
And as well as Aspirot has played, the left-shot defenseman has been playing on the right side with the absences of McAvoy and Henri Jokiharju. Would Sturm ever sit Mason Lohrei and keep both Soderstrom and Aspirot in the lineup, allowing Aspirot to move over to his strong side? Lohrei’s been vastly improved since he was a healthy scratch earlier in the season and he’s on the second power-play unit.
After being a league-worst minus-43 last season, he’s at plus-4 now. But his penchant for giveaways was brought up just last week by Sturm when he was asked about the lanky defenseman.
Another consideration is McAvoy’s pairing with Zadorov brought out the best in McAvoy and it made for a very good top pairing. We’ll see. There are lots of options.
The guess here? They go with option one. But then again, we would not have predicted that Sturm would team Pastrnak with Fraser Minten and Marat Khusnutdinov, but that trio worked out pretty well in St. Louis.
Checking in
It sounded like Sturm was planning to go back with the line of Alex Steeves-Elias Lindholm-Morgan Geekie for another game.
That line had been playing very well and, despite the return of Pastrnak, Sturm kept it together for the win in St. Louis. The trio did not get on the scoreboard.
“I know (Steeves) probably didn’t have his best game (Tuesday) but I’m going to give him another chance,” said Sturm. “I know what he can do. I know he can play better and I also know how important he is for this team. He’s a good kid. He tries really hard. Sometimes too hard. Those guys who haven’t been in the league a long time, consistency, that’s something they have to learn, too.”
While Steeves wasn’t great at handling the puck on Tuesday, he remained physical, dishing out seven hits, second only to Tanner Jeannot’s nine.
Sway finding way
While Sturm has been pushing all the right buttons lately, getting good goaltending has helped a lot. While Joonas Korpisalo (5-6, 3.38, .888) has provided an occasional good game, Jeremy Swayman has been excellent of late. His stats are looking more like a top goalie’s should (13-7, 2.67, .913) but, according to MoneyPuck, he’s third in the league in goals saves above average behind just Logan Thompson and Ilya Sorokin. Since Nov. 1, he’s 10-3.
“Our goalies are huge,” said Sturm. “We talked about it in the summer. We need better goaltending. We need better special teams. I’m not worried about 5-on-5. But the goaltending’s been outstanding, especially Sway. (In St. Louis) he kept us in early and that automatically gives us a chance to win hockey games. And he’ done it many times this year.”
Swayman has played and won the last two games.
Loose pucks
Upon review, Pastrnak had a three-assist game in the B’s win 5-2 win over St. Louis. The helper in question came on Fraser Minten’s second when it was originally ruled that the puck came cleanly off the boards but Pastrnak clearly touched it. … How do you hide a rough night in the faceoff circle? Score a couple of goals. Minten enjoyed the first two-goal game of his career, but he won just one of nine faceoffs. He might need a little more help from his new wings.
