It just wasn’t going to be the Bruins’ night — or so it seemed.
In a game as unpredictable (and oftentimes unforgiving) as hockey, there are plenty of contests over an 82-game gauntlet where bouncing pucks and skittering biscuits don’t fall in your favor.
You win some, you lose some is the cliched adage for such a fickle on-ice exercise.
But given all that went wrong for the B’s at PPG Paints Arena on Tuesday, this wasn’t just another instance of bad puck luck or a Grade-A chance clanging off a cross-bar.
Rather, it seemed as though Jim Montgomery and his team were mired in their own twisted episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm — with the droning notes of that tuba-led theme cascading over Boston’s bench as misfortune after misfortune played out on the ice in Pittsburgh.
To keep it blunt — the Bruins had absolutely no business winning Tuesday’s game against the Penguins, let alone capturing a point in the standings.
Not on a night in which:
- The Bruins saw both one of their starting netminders and arguably their steadiest defenseman through three weeks exit due to injury — with Derek Forbort nursing a hand/wrist ailment and Jeremy Swayman needing help getting off the ice after his left leg twisted awkwardly.
- The Bruins’ early-season stalwart between the pipes in Linus Ullmark (6-0-0, .945 save percentage entering the night) finally appeared mortal — relinquishing five goals through 32 minutes of ice time before getting pulled for the game … and eventually pressed back into action following Swayman’s injury.
- A Bruins’ defensive structure that had only coughed up six goals in its previous five outings was hewn by the Penguins through the first two periods of action — with lackadaisical backchecking, poor gaps and D-zone miscues making things far too easy for the home club on Tuesday.
Of course, these kinds of letdowns are inevitable bumps in the road that sidetrack every NHL team, even the top contenders, over a full season of ups and downs.
As dominant as the Bruins have been this season, some regression was certainly in order, be it Boston’s potent shooting percentage, Ullmark’s video-game numbers or the B’s sterling defensive metrics even with Charlie McAvoy still on the shelf. Add in the fact that the B’s had two full days off over the weekend, and some rust was to be expected on Tuesday.
As ugly as a lopsided loss would have been — with the injuries to Swayman and Forbort further twisting the knife — these results are to be expected for most teams.
But then again, the 2022-23 Bruins don’t seem to be like most teams.
After all, most teams would probably pack things in after seeing Swayman needing help getting off the ice — the final nail in the coffin on a night in which the hockey gods just weren’t in their favor.
But in what has been a recurring trend through 10 games this season, this veteran, banged-up B’s roster did more than just show some mettle and resolve. Rather than settle for silver linings, they went out and seized results — another two points in the standings, and more conviction gathered in an already motivated locker room.
"They believe in there...it's incredible,” Montgomery said to Boston Hockey Now in wake of Boston’s improbable 6-5 comeback victory over Pittsburgh. “It was 5-3 in the third and we're generating chances, and I'm just sitting there (thinking), ‘I just love the fight in this team. There were like 9 minutes left and (thought) it might not be our night. … but Jesus, it was.”
Boston’s comeback victory over the Penguins — just their third victory in the past 10 years that featured a three-goal rally — encapsulated the very best of this team that we’ve seen through these first 10 games.
- Of course, there was depth — with 13 different players recording at least a point and Jakub Lauko becoming the 16th different player to light the lamp for this team already.
- There was fight — with Ullmark shaking off a sordid start and turning aside all 11 shots that came his way after returning in relief of his injured batterymate in Swayman.
- There was execution — with Taylor Hall making the most of his lone shot on goal and sweeping a fluttering puck past Tristan Jarry with 1:18 left in regulation to force overtime.
- And there was redemption — with Hampus Lindholm (on the ice for three of Pittsburgh’s five tallies) finishing the game with 29:24 of ice time and points in all four of Boston’s unanswered tallies, capped by an OT winner that he snapped over Jarry’s glove to complete the comeback.
The Bruins have largely steamrolled the competition this season — never trailing in seven of their 10 contests so far — but Tuesday’s victory likely meant far more than any of the front-running conquests that Boston has put forth already.
For a Bruins roster filled with veterans who have both been cognizant of many preseason doom-and-gloom musings and are still motivated by past failures, a win like Tuesday adds yet another spark of hope that bigger things await on the horizon.
"It's a great start. I don't know if a lot of people expected us to be or have the record that we have now. But it doesn't matter,” Charlie Coyle said last week. “We know what's in here and like guys we have and the guys that can fill in and take on responsibility and that's a great sign for a team with a few key guys out. … We're looking to win that next game — that final game. But we can't do that right now. What we gotta focus on right now is just our next one. And that's what we keep doing. I think we have that mindset.
“Just focus on the next game, make sure you bring the focus, whether it's loss or win, and we keep building towards that. And we do that right now and we keep building it the right way, doing the right things, we're gonna be a team to be reckoned with when we get to that playoffs.”
Of course, before we go on and crown this team as Cup favorites, Tuesday’s roller-coaster of a contest also serves as a reminder that a lot can go haywire between now and the spring.
Maybe the Bruins just had a few good bounces go their way on Tuesday night.
Maybe the Bruins are just riding the wave of some unsustainable shooting percentages.
Maybe the Penguins aren’t as formidable as previous iterations.
Or maybe, just maybe … this Bruins team is just this good.
Based on what we’ve seen so far, it’s hard to push back against such a belief.
And there’s plenty of belief to go around on this roster.
“It says a lot,” Ullmark said via Matt Porter of the Boston Globe. “Shows really what kind of group we have and the belief we have in ourselves. You can never count us out. We should never count ourselves out.”
