It might be time to start believing in this Bruins group as a playoff team and to hop on the crowded bandwagon that it’s going to be an entertaining hockey spring in Boston. There is still road to be traveled during the regular season and the Stanley Cup still feels like a realistic goal a year or two down the road for this group, but it’s time for just about everybody to cease the doubting about a Black and Gold crew that refuses to budge or give in regardless of the situation.
The B’s were down 3-0 after a dreadful first period on Sunday night in Columbus, but clawed all the way back and eventually took home an unlikely 4-3 shootout victory at Nationwide Arena.
“It says it all about the team that we have this year,” said Marco Sturm. “Guys chipped in. Guys care for each other. I think our team took over by just playing our game. We needed that little push, and we knew that we needed to be better.
“It was a good learning curve for the boys. Moving forward, you cannot relax in this league. It took a lot of work and a lot of patience, but it is paying off in the end.”
It was a massive two points that pushed the Bruins to a four-point cushion for the top wild-card playoff spot and a six-point margin of error for a spot in the Eastern Conference playoff structure.
The Bruins have now pushed to a 90 percent chance of qualifying for the Stanley Cup playoffs, according to MoneyPuck.com, and have a very good chance to push over 100 points for the year, coming off a miserable, lottery-bound finish last season.
Bruins vs CBJ another big one tonight https://t.co/h4szvdxdJW pic.twitter.com/vZRm9yCd5T
— MoneyPuck.com (@MoneyPuckdotcom) March 29, 2026
The victory was sealed by shootout goals from Fraser Minten and a nasty backhanded, top-shelf game-winner from Viktor Arvidsson, but the really big moment was Pavel Zacha’s game-tying strike with the goalie pulled with 11 seconds remaining in regulation.
VIKTOR ARVIDSSON WINS IT IN THE SHOOTOUT TO COMPLETE THE BRUINS COMEBACK 🚨
— Gino Hard (@GinoHard_) March 30, 2026
IT WAS 3-0 JACKETS TO START THE 3RD 🤯 pic.twitter.com/DW7AVsdjBQ
It was Zacha’s second goal of the game and his 13th goal in 17 games since the Olympic break as a player who is clearly on a mission to help elevate the B’s to a playoff spot after missing his Team Czechia stint due to a concussion.
And Jeremy Swayman got the starting nod in back-to-back games over the weekend and made 21 saves through overtime before once again turning the shootout into his personal playground. There might have been some temptation to pull Swayman after the dreadful first period, but the Bruins netminder continues to be a big-time asset in all of these high-pressure games down the stretch.
“Hey, I’m back in college again, baby…it’s exciting. I thought it was awesome,” said Swayman of the uptick in workload. “Anytime you get asked to put the Spoked B on you don’t say ‘no.’ I think the culture in this room is pretty contagious where everybody has to pull their rope when their name gets called.”
But it was also about a very clear message from the unheralded leaders in the Bruins dressing room that the team wasn’t going to