BOSTON – The Bruins might finally be gaining that confidence that completely eluded them to start the season.
The Black and Gold once again ripped off big offensive totals in Tuesday night’s 6-0 win over an Arizona Coyotes team clearly running out of gas at the end of a long East Coast road trip. But Boston also earned its first shutout of the season, finished strong by allowing only five shots on net in the third period and secured a good result for struggling No. 1 goaltender Tuukka Rask on home ice.
If you were to draw up the ideal result prior to last night’s game at TD Garden, it would have gone exactly as it went down against the Coyotes with a dominant, mistake-free victory coming on the heels of a strong win over the Islanders last weekend.
The win was so good, in fact, that defenseman Joe Morrow couldn’t even keep track of how many goals the Bruins had scored.
“It definitely felt good, especially to get that first one out of the way [on home ice],” said Morrow. “Points are hard to come by, and if you get six or seven -- I don’t even know how many goals we got in that game -- it was a blast watching…everybody contributed.”
As bad as the Bruins were in the first three losses to start the season, they’ve been that good over their last five periods of hockey.
It was probably only a matter of time before things stabilized to some degree with so many young players and new faces in the Bruins fold this season, and now everybody is seeing the high ceiling for the team if it can iron out some of the roster weaknesses. Matt Beleskey, Brett Connolly, Jimmy Hayes, Morrow and many others that are new to the Bruins way of doing things made big contributions to the blowout win and are part of seeing exactly how good this Boston hockey club can be this season. Most of those new guys have admitted that the Bruins system took some getting used to, but now they’re getting up to speed and not second-guessing their positioning, or decision-making, on the ice.
Boston Bruins
That answer is still forthcoming on this Bruins team’s overall potential and clearly the B's aren't as good as Tuesday night’s result. But that’s just the same as them not being anywhere near as bad as those first three awful losses to start the season.
“I think the first few games we were trying to figure out what our team was going to be and what we were going to be like. I think now we kind of are starting to figure out our identity, and the things that we need to work on to be a better team,” said Brad Marchand, who added one of Boston’s six goals. “We’re trying to improve every day and the last four games, five games have been really good. We’ve got to be happy with how we’ve been playing, and just want to keep it going now.”
Clearly the offense continues to be a big part of everything the Bruins do and putting up a six-spot on a Coyotes team playing its fifth game in the last eight days – and on the second night of a back-to-back – is exactly what a team average four goals per game is supposed to do. The Bruins rank second in the NHL in overall offense, and it looks like they’re going to be able to score this season whether it’s five-on-five or on the power play.
But what the Bruins showed on Wednesday night was what could be possible if they can get consistent defense and goaltending to go along with an offense that’s clicking on most fronts while being led by red-hot David Krejci. It’s the defense and goalies that impressed shutting down the Coyotes and really not allowing much of anything to get started against Rask. There was perhaps one difficult save among his 24 stops in the shutout win and instead the Bruins' goaltender made all the routine saves in exactly the kind of performance he needed to stop his own personal struggles.
Then the Bruins really locked down the sleeper hold on Arizona in the third period when they allowed just five shots on Rask and earned the shutout they’d been searching for this season.
“We looked really tight defensively and overall we had good layers,” said Tuukka Rask. “You know, the second period a few times we gave them some room in the neutral zone there, but other than that I thought it was a great, tight effort.”
So the Bruins have taken nine out of a possible 10 points in their last five games, have exhibited some strong defensive work in their last five periods of hockey and finally showed on Tuesday night they could protect a third period lead on home ice. These are all traits that the Bruins’ teams in the recent past have exhibited, and exactly the kind of things they’ll need to do if they hope to return to the playoffs this spring.
“I think this summer we got a little too carried away with guys talking about how exciting it’s going to be to play more offense, and playing with the puck more,” said Torey Krug. “We kind of let our foundation get away from us. So I think you get back to your ways. I think personally for me, the better I’m playing defensively the more chances I get offensively. So I think that works well for our team too.”
The most encouraging part of Tuesday night’s one-sided stomping of a weary yet improved Coyotes team that’s most likely still headed back to a lottery draft pick this summer? The Bruins weren’t getting overly excited about the result from one undeniably good game and instead wanted to get right back to work with the aim of producing another win just like it.
There are no guarantees on how good the Bruins can be this season, but efforts like Tuesday night illustrate that perhaps it’s okay to invest a little hope in this hockey team after all.