The Bruins left the TD Garden ice without a pair of coveted points against the Lightning on Saturday night.
But that doesn’t mean that Boston failed to deliver a message to its top threat in the Eastern Conference. Many in Tampa Bay’s locker room have the welts to prove such sentiment.
"That's playoff hockey right there,” Tampa winger Patrick Maroon noted postgame after the Bolts’ 5-3 victory over the Bruins.
By the time the dust settled in the latest Bruins/Bolts bedlam, the list of infractions was more akin to a CVS receipt that your ordinary box score.
94 total penalty minutes.
Five misconducts.
Four fighting majors.
And Mikhail Sergachev's stick in a pear tree.
Fair to say, the raucous crowd packed into Causeway Street’s largest barn got their money’s worth, as arguably the NHL’s top two Stanley Cup favorites traded blows — both figuratively and very, very literally — throughout the night.
The Bruins and Lightning will not meet each other again for the remainder of the 2019-20 regular season — with Tampa closing out the series with three wins in those four meetings. But if the hockey gods are kind, Saturday's scrap could just be the lead-in to the most anticipated heavyweight bout in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
"I feel like we’re getting a little bad blood right now," Maroon added. "We’re starting to stir the pot here a little bit, which is fun going into meaningful games down the stretch. Boston is the team. What they accomplished last year and what they've accomplished this year. That's the team to beat and it's good to start a little rivalry here against a good hockey team and a team that plays the right way. They play tough and they like to stick up for their teammates."
"There’s a value in sticking up for one another, there’s a value in responding. Of course there is. Some nights, it’s more important than the outcome," Cassidy said. "I’m not going to sit here and say one or the other, we’ll look through it, but we wanted to respond. There was a, we thought, a high hit early on (Ondrej) Kase. You know, he’s been out.
"We responded well and it was kind of on from there, the physicality part. So, I think both teams kind of went toe-to-toe in that regard, so yeah, there’s a lot of value in that. We pride ourselves on that. In fact, it was discussed earlier this year that we didn’t have enough of that, and I certainly feel we do. Certainly tried to prove that tonight, and try to win the game at the same time."
"I think some of the stuff we talked about, sticking together and as far as team chemistry goes — we're already a really tight group," Charlie McAvoy said. "But you see guys answer the bell for each other, regardless of their size or role or anything and everyone steps for each other and makes sure we have each other's back. That's something where you look at it and you're proud of one another. That's the kind of hockey you're going to run into down the road. It's nice to know that everybody has each other's back."
It seems rather inevitable that both these powerhouses will do battle again once the calendar turns to May. Although, many thought a similar scenario would play out last spring — and look what followed.
But when it comes to parsing through the rosters packed with the most talent, experience and — perhaps most importantly — urgency, few Cup contenders come close to the B's and Bolts.
The tale of the tape doesn't discern much when it comes to sizing up which of these two loaded teams might have the inside edge over the course of a grueling, seven-game series.
Seems like there's only one way to find out.