The Boston Bruins continue to battle their way out of their early season funk in a series of fits and starts amidst the NHL schedule.
Earlier this week it was a colossal dud in Toronto and on Thursday night it was an imperfect, ultimately successful 4-3 overtime win over the Calgary Flames that revealed the same old issues with the Black and Gold, but also uncovered a beating heart sometimes willing to overcome those pesky flaws against quality NHL opponents.
A big recent development has been captain Brad Marchand (four goals, seven points in the last seven games) really finding his game as he scored the 21st overtime game-winner of his NHL career that ranks him third all-time in the league, and first among all Bruins players. Marchand was teamed with Elias Lindholm against the Flames and those two looked very good as a tandem before tag-teaming on the OT game-winner when Lindholm pursued and won a puck battle behind the net before feeding it to Marchand in front for the second-effort game-winner.
Elias Lindholm and Brad Marchand playing together may be something the Bruins want to stick with for a bit pic.twitter.com/gq2RS3Hz7H
— Joe Haggerty (@HackswithHaggs) November 8, 2024
It's the same kind of junkyard dog effort that’s always made the B’s left winger the prototypical dangerous player during 3-on-3 play in overtime.
“He’s really good 1-on-1,” said Hampus Lindholm. “When he gets that puck, he’s like a pit bull with meat on the bone. He just never leaves it alone. He wins his battles and he’s hungry and that’s how you score goals 3-on-3 in this league.”
For Marchand, it was also a redemptive moment after he took a very ill-advised roughing penalty just nine seconds into the third period with the Bruins protecting a narrow 3-1 lead. That, of course, led to Boston’s leaky penalty kill allowing another power play goal followed by a game-tying play from Nazem Kadri as he toe-dragged Nikita Zadorov on a net drive before beating Joonas Korpisalo with a top corner snipe.
It all ended up setting Marchand up to be the overtime hero, of course, but he willingly accepted accountability for mistakes that forced him to be the extra session savior. It’s the same combination of undisciplined play and special teams struggles that have dogged this Black and Gold group this season, and it ended up costing them a fairly important regulation win (the first tiebreaker for playoff spots) on Thursday night as well.
“You do, for sure. It’s a bad penalty to take at a bad time in the game,” said Marchand, when asked how badly he wanted to answer for the penalty that cost the B’s in the third period. “When you start a period in a situation like that it usually dictates how you’re going to play that period. It’s just a bad penalty to take, so I definitely wanted to redeem myself. It doesn’t make up for it, but it’s always nice to get the two points.
“The biggest thing for us right now is to play direct and put pucks to the net. It’s something we haven’t done great since the start of the year and it’s something we’ve talked about a little more lately. So we’re just trying to have that mindset because that’s where the goals are scored. We just need to get pucks and bodies there. Sometimes they go in and sometimes they don’t, but that’s what we need to do.”
Still, there were some things to build on for a Bruins squad still hovering around the .500 mark these days.
Cole Koepke scored his fourth goal of the season on a nice finish off a great dish from the surging Charlie Coyle, and the fourth liner sits among the NHL’s top-10 in plus/minus (plus-11) despite playing on a Bruins team that’s got an unsightly minus-11 goal differential this season. Lindholm opened up the scoring for the Bruins as he continues to be Boston’s most consistent defenseman this season while other blueliners are still trying to figure it out at this early stage.
“I thought Hampus was really skating and he was on his toes tonight,” said Montgomery. “The really good thing with Hampus when he’s playing really well – and it was a good example on the goal – is that he’s moving his feet in the neutral zone and he’s jumping into the offensive zone to support the play. That way it’s easier for the defense to be uncovered.”
Joonas Korpisalo was again excellent for the Bruins with 34 saves, including a couple of huge ones in overtime, and is actually leading Bruins goalies in goals against average (2.72) and save percentage (.900) with Jeremy Swayman off to a very slow start this season. The backup netminder has thoroughly lived up to his end of the bargain so far and is giving the Bruins a chance to win very time he’s between the pipes.
Matt Coronato gets a good shot off on a 2 on 1 with Mikael Backlund but they can't beat Joonas Korpisalo.
— Robert Munnich (@RingOfFireCGY) November 8, 2024
🎥: Sportsnet | NHL pic.twitter.com/QVoE4hWwJ3
“I thought he was good, especially in the second [period] I thought he made a lot of key saves when we extended our lead to 3-1,” said Jim Montgomery.
Another player who seemingly is coming out of the doldrums is Pavel Zacha, who was inserted back at center alongside fellow Czech David Pastrnak and buried a goal on a bouncing centering pass from No. 88 in the first-period offensive surge. Zacha finished off an excellent game with a goal and two points, five shot attempts and a perfect 8-for-8 from the faceoff circle while perhaps showing with his play that he wants to be in the middle a little more often.
Pastrnak played one of his better games as well with a pair of assists and eight shot attempts, but again the game-breaking sniper was passing off scoring attempts in the third period when the Bruins needed him to be much more assertive.
That’s another of the B’s early season maladies that continues to subtract from their overall efforts and are making things more difficult for Boston to overcome.
But the bottom line is that Thursday’s overtime victory has to be viewed as a display of character and progress from a team that had nowhere to go but “up” after a truly rough month of October. That’s exactly how the Bruins players were viewing it after battling their way to two points and keeping with the Florida, Toronto and Tampa Bay pack at the top of the Atlantic Division despite their early struggles.
“I think we expected more from ourselves and we’ve expected better results,” said Marchand, of the 7-7-1 start to the B’s season. “We expected to come out of the gate hot and we didn’t, and it is what it is. You can’t dwell on it. You need to look at the things that need to improve and work on them every day. But I think with the amount of change that we’ve had – not just this year, but last year as well – [a tough stretch] was inevitable. It’s something we thought might happen last year and didn’t, and now we are working through it together.
“We’ll be better for it. When you go through adversity it makes you stronger, and you learn a lot about yourself and each other.”
That’s certainly the hope for the Bruins, but it’s also undeniable that expectations are still high for the Black and Gold after money was spent to improve the roster this past summer coming off a consistently strong season.