NHL Notebook: Is a playoff path emerging for Bruins through a loaded Atlantic-Division field?

For months, the Bruins' fate seemed to be sealed.

Sure, given the 50/50 disparity in terms of production and success between the 16 teams in the Eastern Conference, Boston’s quest of punching its ticket to the postseason for the sixth straight season has been all but assured since the early days of winter.

But with the B’s treading water through the first few months of the 2021-22 campaign (14-10-2 through the end of December) and the rest of the Atlantic-Division field surging in the early going, it looked as though Boston was doomed to orchestrate another Stanley Cup push as a Wild-Card club.

That's hardly an insurmountable starting gate to begin another playoff push, especially in a game as unpredictable as hockey.  

Well, except for perhaps this season — considering the number of juggernauts holding court in East. 

“Every playoff team is a legit contender this year,” Brad Marchand acknowledged on Thursday. “So every team has their work cut out for them. And it's gonna be a crazy playoffs this year. I'm really excited for playoffs this year, it's gonna be a lot of fun. It's going to be an absolute war all the way through.

“And whoever wins this year, I think it's gonna mean a lot more than other years, because the playoffs this year is so deep. But it's gonna be exciting. I think that we do have that potential to make a good run, but so does every other team —  you're gonna have to win four basically Stanley Cup Final series to win this year. Every team is that deep.  So it's gonna be an interesting playoffs.”

Yes, the Bruins have their work cut out for them however way you want to carve a path out of their bracket. 

But entering this field as a Wild-Card club must feel like being penciled into one of those dreadful “Choose Your Own Adventure” books. And be it a first-round bout against a wagon of a Panthers team or a Hurricanes crew that has outscored them, 16-1, in this season — the Bruins looked like they were going to going to be in for a world of hurt with whatever team they were going to draw. 

But in just the span of three months, the Bruins seem poised to re-write that narrative entirely. 

After miring in the Wild-Card standings for most of the season, the Bruins are now sitting in a favorable (or at least as favorable as you could frame it) position in this cutthroat Atlantic Division as of Saturday night.

With Boston’s 6-3 win over the Islanders — representing its 14th victory in its last 17 games — Bruce Cassidy’s club has surged up in the standings and now sits alone in second place in Atlantic. 

That fast summit has been spurred of course by Boston’s impressive resurgence since the new year (27-9-2 since Jan. 1), but it’s also been aided by some of the other titans above the B’s beginning to run out of steam. 

With Toronto coming up short against the lowly Habs on Saturday night, the Maple Leafs are now 12-9-2 since the start of February — and are now currently situated in the first Wild-Card spot in the East.

And even though the Tampa Bay Lightning managed to escape Detroit with a 2-1 overtime win on Saturday, the Bolts have still won just three of their last nine games, and one of their pillars on defense in Ryan McDonagh is now out indefinitely with an upper-body injury.

IF the playoffs were to end today, the Bruins would hold home-ice advantage in a first-round bout against the Bolts, while the Maple Leafs would be staring at a first-round bout with the Panthers. 

Home ice or not (look at how well that helped you in 2019), the potential of a first-round meeting with a Tampa club that stymied two promising Cup runs in both 2018 and 2020 will certainly strike fear into the hearts of many B’s fans.

And even in the immediate aftermath of Boston’s 3-2 win over the Bolts on Thursday night, Cassidy was not ready to dance on the grave of a seasoned veteran club with a hefty resume in Tampa. 

“This is the two-time defending Stanley Cup champions,” Cassidy said. “And so we're excited we won and played well. But we're not getting ahead of ourselves either. We know who Tampa Bay is. They know who they are. And the road runs through them eventually. But this is good."

“It's good for the guys in the room to know that if we play a certain way, then we have a chance to beat them and can outplay them in certain areas. So that's the positive of that and you should be confident when you beat a really good team. ... But I'll never get down on Tampa, they're too good of a hockey club. They've accomplished too much. But good for us. Positives for us.”

Even though Boston is now 2-0-1 against the Bolts this season, the best path for the B’s to take through the early rounds of the playoffs would likely see Tampa Bay and Toronto switch spots — a very tangible scenario, considering how crowded these clubs are, points-wise, at the moment.

If such a scenario presented itself, Boston would have to like where it’s at in the Atlantic Division — facing off against a Maple Leafs club with some rather evident flaws in net (29th in NHL in 5v5 save percentage) in the first round, while the Bolts (in the first Wild-Card spot) would have to wage war in a Sunshine-State showdown against the Panthers.  

Of course, that opens the door for Boston to inevitably try and land a knockout punch against one of those two Florida-based titans in Round 2, but perhaps that opening-round war of attrition makes things a bit easier for Cassidy and Co.

Again, there’s not exactly an “easy” road for the Bruins or any other Eastern-Conference club to take this spring. But if Boston can manage to: 

• Draw a familiar foe in the Maple Leafs in Round 1.
• Get both Tampa Bay and Florida to trade punches in a first-round slugfest.
• Avoid a team that’s owned them this season in Carolina through the first two rounds.

… that sure seems like the clearest path toward a sustained run into late May and early June. 

Granted, things can change in a hurry. While the Bruins are rolling right now, all it takes for another two or three-game rut to suddenly wind up back in that first Wild-Card spot. And considering the amount of games left on the docket over these last four-plus weeks of the season, expect the Bruins/Bolts/Leafs to all leapfrog each other at various points down the stretch. 

But give credit where it’s due. At one point back in December, the potential of Boston actually competing for home ice in the Atlantic Division seemed like a bit of misguided optimism. 

But now, for the first time in a long time, the Bruins seem to be in control of their own narrative. 

And it sure seems like the whole roster has bought in. 

"I think just the belief that there's a lot of new faces around the organization,” Taylor Hall said Saturday of what turned around Boston’s season. “There's a lot of things that have turned over in the last year — (Zdeno) Chara, (David Krejci), Tuukka (Rask), Kevan Miller, Torey Krug. Those are big parts of the team that aren't here anymore — guys that I didn't even play with.

But you can tell that there were holes that needed to be filled and the start of our year with our schedule — we played sometimes one every five days, every three days. It was really hard to get traction and momentum. And now that we got COVID all over with, from January 1, we've had a good schedule, just in terms of keeping momentum and playing well. … I don't know, maybe people were wondering what our identity as a team was going to be. But in the room we kept focus and everyone's really trending the right way.”

McLaughlin offers strong first impression

Marc McLaughlin has yet to make his pro debut after inking his entry-level deal with Boston, but the former BC captain and North Billerica native is already making his presence felt up with the big club —  serving as a depth piece up in the NHL ranks and standing out in a number of drills at Warrior Ice Arena.

Even though perhaps the 22-year-old forward could use some reps down in Providence, Cassidy has already been impressed with McLaughlin’s skillset — noting that the college free agent already received a ringing endorsement from his coach at Chesnut Hill in Jerry York.

"I talked to Jerry the other day. Loves him as a person, was his captain for two years,” Cassidy said of McLaughlin. “Hard-working guy. He's got a bit of Noel (Acciari) in his game in terms of straight-line (play). Bit of center and a winger, mostly center there (at BC). Kind of like Noel, who was predominantly a center at Providence. ... But I don't want to pigeonhole anybody.

“Let's get him out there and play when it's his turn to go and then we'll better be able to identify where he fits. I know he shoots the puck hard, he had some power-play goals. ... But it sounds like he's a Bruin, hard-working guy. Straight-line player and will give his all every night. We’re going to try to get him in here as soon as we can.”

Even though McLaughlin is currently on the outside looking in at regular reps on that fourth line, don’t be surprised if he draws in sooner rather than later — especially if Boston opts to give players like Nick Foligno and others a breather during this hectic sprint to the end of the regular season.

"(Mike) Reilly and (Josh) Brown will play. We've talked about McLaughlin, we will get him in as well," Cassidy said of Boston using more bench pieces down the stretch. "So that's probably not rest, that's more of we want to make sure these players stay sharp, and see what we have in two of them. We haven't seen Brown in a Bruins jersey or McLaughlin. So that will happen. But again down the road, we'll make that decision if we have the luxury of doing that, I guess is the best way to answer it."

Marchand talks March Munch

Brad Marchand’s affinity for cinnamon-centric cereal brands has been well-documented at this point.

During his day with the Stanley Cup back in the summer of 2011, Marchand reworked the hallowed piece of hardware as a cereal bowl — using it to scarf down an entire box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

So when the opportunity presented itself for Marchand to create his own cereal brand, the B’s winger was completely on board.

Working with PLB Sports & Entertainment — which has also brewed up custom cereal creations with other athletes such as Doug Flutie, Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes — Marchand unveiled “March Munch”, which will be available at Shaw’s, Star Market and Market Basket locations for a limited time.

Marchand has compiled quite the resume over his decade-plus career up in the NHL ranks. But for a cereal connoisseur like himself, getting his face slapped on a breakfast product stands as the latest in a long line of “pinch-me’ moments.

“I mean, that's one of those things where growing up, you'd see different athletes with a cereal," Marchand said. "And I remember when Gronk had his, I saw it in the store and I was like, ‘Man, that would be incredible one day.’ … We're obviously very blessed with what we're able to do and the situation we're in but growing up, it's just crazy to think back to where things have come and kind of where I started. 

“When you start playing hockey, you just do it because you love it. You never ever think that you'd have an opportunity to have your own cereal. So it's truly a surreal thing. I mean, it's something I'm very proud of to be able to be in the position to have that and my kids see that, they're extremely excited and they were involved in the process as well with picking out a picture and the stuff that goes with it. So yeah, it was a really cool experience.”

A portion of each sale of “March Munch” will benefit Christopher’s Haven, a Boston-based organization whose goal is to operate a supportive and affordable living community consisting of apartments and a community recreation area for families of children undergoing cancer treatment. 

As for a catchy slogan?

“They're face-lickin' good,” Marchand said. “Can I say that? I don't even know. If I can't, I'm sorry. I swear.”