Ryan: Even amid injuries & inconsistencies, ‘rolling’ Bruins look primed for second-half run

Ha might have every reason to, but Bruce Cassidy hasn’t devoted much of his energy searching for excuses during the 2018-19 campaign.

Not when a preseason trip to China hewed the club’s roster in two — forcing a majority of the B’s regulars to endure a pair of 16-hour flights and two preseason games abroad just a few weeks before the regular season got underway.

Not when injuries sapped plenty of punch out of Boston’s lineup — with stalwarts in Patrice Bergeron, Zdeno Chara, Kevan Miller, and Charlie McAvoy missing a combined 84 games due to a myriad of ailments.

Not when various vacancies in the lineup,  both due to injury and inconsistent play, have forced Cassidy to shuffle around his roster on a daily basis — with the club rolling out 39 different line combinations that have seen at least 10 minutes of 5v5 ice time together.

And — upon a quick spot check — can you really blame for B’s bench boss?

For all that has seemingly gone wrong for the B’s this season — the injuries, the unfilled spots on the roster, the regression of some younger skaters — Boston has continued to chug along in what has been a cutthroat Atlantic Division.

Just two days removed from the pomp and circumstance of the 2019 Winter Classic, the writing was on the wall for Boston to labor against the Flames on Thursday night — an opponent riding an 11-4-2 stretch to the top of the Western Conference, points wise.

It wasn’t pretty, but Boston did enough to clinch its third consecutive win on Thursday with a 6-4 result — with 11 different skaters registering at least a point in the victory.

While Boston’s potent top-line trio of Bergeron, Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak have combined for six goals and 12 points over the team’s recent three-game winning streak, it’s been other contributions that have led to points in the standings — with Sean Kuraly providing both the OT winner against Buffalo on Saturday and the go-ahead tally against Chicago Tuesday in South Bend.

It hasn’t been a conventional season by any means for the Bruins, but at the exact midway point of the 2018-19 season, Boston has managed to remain afloat — generating a 100-point pace and sitting in third place in the Atlantic.

That doesn’t come as much of a surprise to Cassidy. Given the amount of veteran talent still revving the engine on this roster — a 100-point pace is the expectation, not a pleasant surprise.

“Today, like after Christmas, (loss to New) Jersey, we got off the Christmas break," Cassidy said. "Today, it’s a letdown from the Winter Classic, blah, blah, blah, right? Like, we’ve got to be ready to go. It’s that freakin’ simple.”

At this point, the roadblock precluding Cassidy and his staff from rolling out a largely healthy roster for the first time all season lies in the status of McAvoy, who has been out of commission since before the holiday with a lower-body injury. Joakim Nordstrom is the other shoe to drop, with the versatile winger set to miss three weeks with a fibula fracture.

“We’d like to think we’ll get better, simply because a lot of the guys that were out that are key contributors are now healthy and the only one left is Charlie,” Cassidy said. “Charlie’s progressing well. We talked about that this morning. We hope to see him back on skates early next week. And from there I don’t know what day we’ll be in the lineup, but it won’t be too far along.”

There are still warts when it comes to this team — ones that have been well-documented time and time again this year.

This team needs youngsters like Danton Heinen and Ryan Donato to turn a corner and start capitalizing in the offensive zone. Miscues on the man advantage have seen the team saddled with a league-high nine shorthanded goals against. Barring some miraculous improvement from within or down in Providence, a top-six winger or third-line center is still a much-needed shoe that has yet to drop.

Still, this Bruins club in its current state has more than enough means to orchestrate a second-half run, especially during a slate in January that will see Boston host opponents at TD Garden for nine of its 12 games this month. 

Even with some tough foes in the Capitals and the Jets, Boston will also host cellar dwellers such as the Flyers and Blues at the Garden — where the Bruins hold a 14-5 record.

“It’s tough to really get a good look at your group when so many guys are out consistently, but the last little bit we’ve had, a majority of the guys back in the lineup, and I think we’re starting to feel a little good about our game,” Marchand said. “It’s a lot easier to build that chemistry when we’re back together so, we’re kind of rolling now.”

If anything, Boston’s home-friendly schedule — and the subsequent bye week Jan. 20-27 — will allow the B’s to generate some momentum and manufacture some breathing room in the standings.

After all, the Bruins don’t want to be clinging to a Wild-Card spot down the stretch, with the final seven weeks of the regular season featuring 13 matchups on the road — including three games against the Lightning and a pair against the Panthers, who have had the B’s number as of late.

With a healthy roster finally starting to taking shape, the Bruins find themselves in an unusual position this year — back in the driver's seat with both momentum and their schedule on their side.

How they respond over the next couple of games will set the course for the rest of the campaign. At this point, any crutch born out of excuses has to go out the door.

“I think we have to be happy with where we’re at, but can’t be satisfied,” Marchand added. “We can definitely be a little bit better here, you know, especially when you look at the standings there’s a number of teams battling for each and every spot every night, and teams are going to flip-flop for the rest of the year.

That’s kind of been the way it is the last four or five years now, there’s so much parity in the league. So, we can’t get caught up in where we’re at. We have to continue to work on our game and our process, and making sure we’re good every night. It’s only going to get harder from here, so we have to make sure we’re ready to battle even harder the rest of the year.”