We really should have all seen this coming with the Boston Bruins.
For the second season in a row, every talking head associated with the Bruins and around the NHL spent the offseason planning the sure demise of the B’s in the Eastern Conference based on their summer circumstances.
Both Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci retired and a Black and Gold team in dire salary cap straits was forced to trade Taylor Hall and go bargain bin shopping for veteran free agent players like James van Riemsdyk, Kevin Shattenkirk and Milan Lucic. Certainly, the emergence of 19-year-old Matt Poitras can’t be overstated as he’s filled into a top-6 center spot nicely and put the finishing touches on sticking around in Boston with a breakaway insurance goal during the B’s 3-0 win over the Chicago Blackhawks at the United Center on Tuesday night.
Matt Poitras turning the Connor Bedard Show into the Matt Poitras Show pic.twitter.com/IvfBV0VucM
— Joe Haggerty (@HackswithHaggs) October 25, 2023
The win capped off a perfect, week-long four-game road odyssey through California and Chicago that now has the Bruins matching the 1937-38 team for the best start in franchise history, a fitting accomplishment for an Original Six franchise celebrating their Centennial season.
But even more than that it was about the focused, almost defiant attitude that the Boston Bruins entered with into this season thanks to a new leadership group headed by captain Brad Marchand, who wouldn’t let their group worry about the players that weren’t in Boston’s dressing room anymore.
“Obviously I think there’s a lot of talk about who is not here and who isn’t here anymore,” admitted Milan Lucic a few days prior to the start of the regular season. “And for obvious reasons because your 1A and 1B center had been here for as long as they had, and they were one of the best 1-2 punches of their generation.
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“So of course, they are going to be talked about. But for us, I think we need to worry about the guys that are here and the opportunities there for different people to step up into different roles. One of the things that was always established here was that roles and positions are always earned. It’s not given out. You see that with [Johnny] Beecher and Poitras. They earned their way into the lineup to be here right now. I think we just need to be a team, play a structured game and work as a group of five in all zones and all areas. The best success is team success, so we need to do our best to push that forward.”
The focus on the players actually on the roster has turned into another Boston Bruins team defying the prognosticators. Jeremy Swayman (23 saves) and the B’s put out a shutout effort against the Blackhawks that’s now pushed them to 6-0-0 on the season in their second-best start in franchise history.
Literally nobody saw this coming for the Boston Bruins even if the formula is something that everybody did predict. Swayman and Linus Ullmark have allowed just seven goals in the first six games of the season backed by a tremendous defensemen corps, and they’ve cobbled together just enough offense to win mostly tight hockey games with the classic winning combo of defense and goaltending.
“Loved the results, loved our goaltending,” said Montgomery to reporters. “And starting to see our team identity build because the L.A. game and this game tonight, you’re starting to see us become a heavy, grinding team, which is what I think we’re going to have to be.”
On Tuesday night it was Pavel Zacha grinding out an early goal when he tipped a Kevin Shattenkirk point shot, and then Poitras putting things away in the third with a dynamic offensive play. It turned what ESPN was hoping was going to be “The Connor Bedard Show” into the “Matt Poitras Show” where the 19-year-old finally seized the national broadcast spotlight after a LOT of time and talk had been devoted to Bedard.
Poitras had three goals on the four-game road trip and did an impressive job in the latter three games of rebounding from a rough opening effort in San Jose.
“I felt like I just got better and better as [the road trip] went on,” said Poitras to reporters in Chicago after the win. “That’s a good sign. It makes me feel better on the ice and shift by shift. Confidence level is pretty high…just getting used to the system, more comfortable game in and game out.
“As I gel into that, it makes everything a little more simpler knowing where people are and being able to come up the ice, and once we get into the O-zone, I can use my hockey IQ and try to make some plays."
Then it was the highly effective new third line of van Riemsdyk, Charlie Coyle and Trent Frederic that scored again to put things out of reach.
They utilized nifty passing, dogged pursuit and their big bodies to create some havoc around the front of the Chicago net that ultimately resulted in Frederic banging home a goal at the net front. The presence of Poitras as a top-6 center actually allowed Montgomery to put together the big-bodied, puck-possession trio as a third line that’s bring some forward depth back to the picture for Boston as well.
Even the Bruins coaching staff is clicking on all cylinders with a perfect coaching challenge from video coaches Mat Myers and Dan Darrow on a Bedard first period goal wiped out the Chicago score, even if the actually offside entry from Andreas Athanasiou happened way before any of the action leading up to the score. The sequence erased a ghastly Coyle turnover from the corner right along with the Bedard snipe that the ESPN studio raved about even though it didn’t end up counting.
Add it all together and the Boston Bruins are once again defying all expectations again this season in something that perhaps we should have seen coming.
The legacy of competing and winning that Bergeron and Zdeno Chara built is obviously still vibrant and strong with the torch having been passed, but maybe, just maybe, we all need to start appreciating a fully capable core group of Boston Bruins players still finding ways to compete, win and put themselves in a prime position atop the Atlantic Division.
