As we hit the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States, it’s traditionally a relevant time to gauge where NHL teams reside near the quarter pole of the regular season.
In the modern NHL era dating back to the institution of the salary cap, NHL teams have close to an 80 percent chance of qualifying for the Stanley Cup playoffs if they’re in a postseason spot by the late November holiday, and those numbers go way, way up for teams at the forefront of the playoff pack. It’s pretty much already a foregone conclusion the Boston Bruins will be in the Stanley Cup playoffs again this season after another impressive win on Wednesday night, a solid 3-1 victory over the Florida Panthers at FLA Live Arena.
The victory pushes the Bruins to a ridiculous 14-1-3 on the season and widens their lead in the Atlantic Division to six points over the very same Florida team most closely chasing them in the standings. They aren’t doing it with suffocating puck possession and overwhelming lineup depth as they did last season, but instead have pivoted to strong 200-foot defense, elite goaltending from both netminders and a true team offensive dynamic where different players contribute on a nightly basis.
It may be a different method, but the results are eerily similar for the B’s to last season in something that can’t be viewed as merely coincidental.
“We’ve only lost one in regulation so anytime that you play this amount of games and have that means that we’re doing something right,” said Jake DeBrusk. “There’s a lot of guys that are contributing in different ways. Need that to win. And our goaltending’s been really solid as well, bailed us out in a lot of games.
“Definitely room for improvement on different sides of things. It was nice to have the dad’s trip here and get some laughs.”
It was almost comical to watch the TNT studio panel simply shake their heads and marvel at the winning culture that’s been built with the Bruins where they have an unshakable confidence no matter what’s happening around them.
It even started before the game when Panthers forward Matthew Tkachuk was asked by the TNT crew about what Florida has built over the last few years, leading them to upsetting the Bruins in the playoffs and pushing all the way to the Stanley Cup Final.
Matthew Tkachuk on TNT on the Panthers' culture: "Honestly, a lot of it is stuff we took from the Bruins. The buy-in that we have, I don't think there's many teams that have that, other than maybe the Bruins."
— Scott McLaughlin (@smclaughlin9) November 22, 2023
"Honestly, a lot of it is stuff we took from the Bruins,” said Tkachuk, who was a massive factor in that first-round playoff series. “The buy-in that we have, I don't think there's many teams that have that, other than maybe the Bruins."
There probably couldn’t have been a better example of how the Bruins are going about their dominant business this season than Wednesday night’s win, as well. Linus Ullmark finished with 27 saves and stole the show with a brick wall performance in the first half of the game when the Panthers tossed 15 shots at the B’s net in the first period.
Ullmark turned them all away in his first game back between the pipes after Jeremy Swayman had earned consecutive starts for the first time this season, and then engineered a big turning point moment after kicking out a leg pad to stop Kevin Strenlund on a scoring chance.
Linus Ullmark (@Icebeardude) stretches across the crease for a huge pad stop! 🙅♂️
— NHL (@NHL) November 23, 2023
📺: @NHL_On_TNT & @SportsonMax ➡️ https://t.co/W9mpYG1lMO pic.twitter.com/Xv1pb8IjW4
“Sometimes you just battle,” said Ullmark. “There’s no thought process behind it. You just try to get something in there. Sometimes you try to make it as easy as possible on yourself with the momentum going right and then having to go left again, it was just about getting something in the way.”
Seconds later DeBrusk was at the other end of the ice pushing a second chance scoring bid past Sergei Bobrovsky to give the Bruins a two-goal lead they’d never relinquish.
It was a series of role players providing the offense, as it’s been in many of their 14 wins.
Charlie Coyle scoring during 4-on-4 play at the end of the first period, Johnny Beecher kicking in a goal from the fourth line for the second straight game and then DeBrusk throwing off any talk of slump with the kind of hardnosed, crash-the-net score that he needed to snap a seven-game goalless spell.
“A little bit of uncharted territory but it’s exciting,” said Beecher, who has goals in two straight games with the Boston Bruins dads on the two-game road trip through Florida. “Just trying to help the team win as much as I can. If that means contributing on the scoresheet, that’s a bonus. Great weekend for the guys. I thought it was a good team effort. Great win.
“Gaining more confidence as the year goes on. The guys have been unbelievable with me just helping me learn. It’s a long season. There are going to be ups and downs. We’re having a ton of success so can’t really beat that.”
Truer words have never been spoken when it comes to the Boston Bruins. It’s beyond simply a hot start for the Black and Gold against some of the Western Conference weaker sisters, as it seemed to be back in October. Now, the Bruins are using the same tried-and-true defense and goaltending formula to roll through their East rivals, and again serve as the standard-bearer in the Eastern Conference this season.
“I think the first period was a great indication. They didn’t panic. It wasn’t their best period. They got some pretty good goaltending, but players probably went into the locker room and said we need to be better in the second period,” said TNT analyst Wayne Gretzky during the second intermission. “They went out and they’re up 3-1. Just a really well-coached, you can tell. They don’t panic and they really play with a lot of confidence.”
It's uncertain if this Bruins team is ever going to give off the same unstoppable aura that last season’s hockey team did while rolling out 65 wins and 135 points, but then again none of that seemed to matter when it came playoff time. Instead, this Boston Bruins team is being forced to grind it out for the same level of results this season, and maybe, just maybe, that could make all the difference when it comes to the Stanley Cup playoffs a long five months down the long and winding hockey road.