There are unquestionably two ways of looking at Boston finally snapping their 10-game losing streak with a very solid home win against a Carolina Hurricanes team that looked to be in cruise control until the Stanley Cup playoffs.
One is the very stone-cold business look at even one win throwing a possible monkey wrench into a very clear tank job to get a top-10 first-round pick that could become a top-5 first-rounder if Boston really crashes and burns in the final weeks. The Bruins aren’t going to drop far enough for Saginaw center and top-rated prospect Michael Misa, who appears to be the best center in the upcoming 2025 NHL Draft and draws favorable comparisons to a John Tavares-type that would theoretically be exactly what the Black and Gold need right now.
But they could be in the mix for Boston College forward James Hagens, Moncton center Caleb Desnoyers and Brandon center Roger McQueen, who was personally scouted by Don Sweeney during a recent Western Hockey League game. Jake O’Brien and Swedish center Anton Frondell round out the likely center prospects expected to be selected in the lottery portion of the first round, so there is clearly some long-term motivation there for the Bruins to lose more than they win coming down the stretch.
Jeremy Swayman gets the trapper on it in one of his 39 saves on 40 shots that helped him earn his 100th NHL victory 🤩
— Jewish ice hockey players 📟 (@JewishHockey) April 6, 2025
pic.twitter.com/ePcciBOgee
But that’s impossible to convince when it comes to the players, who live, die and breathe in the day-to-day of the short-term wins and losses. Player performances down the stretch will undoubtedly drive decisions about their NHL careers, and whether or not they will continue to be Boston Bruins as soon as next season.
So the downtrodden players in that B’s dressing room needed a win badly after dropping 10 straight games, and they needed to do it on home ice hearing cheers rather than the chorus of boos that had been cascading over them the last few weeks.
They got the quick burst of adulation they were looking for with Saturday night’s 5-1 win over the Carolina Hurricanes, a victory that included David Pastrnak’s 19th career hat trick and a very strong 39-save performance from Jeremy Swayman that looked like the old goaltender at work.
“It feels so good -- unbelievable,” said Swayman said of Boston’s first win since March 11 against the Florida Panthers. “A big weight was released from all of our shoulders. It’s a gratifying feeling to go through it, and finally get out of it and feeling good about our game. It’s so good to see the Garden happy again. It’s a feeling that we’ve missed and it’s addicting, so we’re not going to let that (a losing streak) happen again.”
Swayman erased pretty much every mistake that Boston made in front of him and the only blemish was a late third-period goal that spoiled the shutout effort Swayman had been working on. More importantly, he credited the team in front of him for doing the grunt work (25 blocked shots for the B’s versus seven for the Hurricanes) that made it all possible as he made acrobatic saves and saw the puck hit him in good position pretty much all evening.
Jeremy Swayman gets the trapper on it in one of his 39 saves on 40 shots that helped him earn his 100th NHL victory 🤩
— Jewish ice hockey players 📟 (@JewishHockey) April 6, 2025
pic.twitter.com/ePcciBOgee
At the other end, though, was an adjustment by Joe Sacco that’s paying dividends offensively as Elias Lindholm replaced Pavel Zacha as the pivot between David Pastrnak and Morgan Geekie. All three forwards scored goals in the explosive top-line performance and Pastrnak finished with a hat trick, five-point performance that saw him reach the 40-goal and 90-point marks for a team where he hasn’t had a lot of offensive support around him.
The addition of Lindholm to the other two wingers makes sense as he can be a third-man high defensive conscience for that line, and Lindholm is a player willing to duke it out at the net front as he did on his goal off a nifty dish from Pastrnak.
“Well, tonight…I mean, they were a plus-5 [as a line]. That’s obviously a good sign,” said Sacco. “We just thought we needed to change some things. I think what Lindy provides, because of his experience, is that away from the puck his defensive awareness frees the other guys up to play their game.
“He takes on a little more responsibility defensively making sure he’s the low guy on the right side of it. Plus, he goes to the net well. On the second goal, he’s standing there in front of the goaltender while the other two are moving around in the offensive zone. We want to make sure we’ve got somebody anchored at the net and he does that. That line needs that…they need a net presence. That was part of it along with trying to get [Pavel Zacha] and [Casey Mittelstadt] some chemistry so maybe we can balance out our attack a little bit.”
But the win was also about Pastrnak continuing to push as the unquestioned leader of this Bruins team as the guy most likely to be wearing the “C” next season as Boston ushers in a new Bruins era.
“This was just fun to win a hockey game and see the Garden happy and cheering and being loud. Great support today. Obviously, it’s been a tough couple of weeks, so good on us. Proud of the group and the effort to block shots. The commitment to win was there today,” said Pastrnak. “It’s been a while since it’s been enjoyable, so it was a fun game. This should be a confidence booster for the whole group…it’s just tough that there’s only five games left with the situation we are in. We just have to regroup and finish the season strong.”
The win did not pull them out of the Atlantic Division basement as they’re still a point behind the Buffalo Sabres, and it doesn’t alter the reality that golfing tee times await them when they wrap up the remaining five games of the regular season schedule. In that way, it almost felt like the New England Patriots winning their last game last season when they could have had a shot at the No. 1 overall pick if they simply lost another meaningless game.
The Patriots are expected to start Drake Maye on Sunday, and @BillSimmons is going to lose his mind if it costs them the no. 1 pick in the draft pic.twitter.com/DjN921syip
— The Ringer (@ringer) January 2, 2025
But the victory does serve as a reminder that the Bruins have valuable pieces that can still help them win hockey games against quality opponents, and that this could be a quick retooling job once their absent defensemen return to good health, they hit on some offseason additions through free agency and trades, and if young players like Fraser Minten, Matt Poitras, Mason Lohrei and others can turn into useful players at the NHL level.
There’s a lot of uncertainty and a lot of ifs that need to be cemented prior to the start of next season, but it was a little refreshing to see a speck of Black and Gold sunshine in what’s been an overwhelmingly negative, and justifiably so, downpour over the second half of a lost, misbegotten hockey season.
