On Tuesday morning, Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy said he viewed Tuesday night’s game against the Florida Panthers’ NHL-best offense as “a good measure for where our checking game is at this point.”
So where is it? In a very good place, as it turns out. In perhaps their last great test before the playoffs begin, the Bruins passed with flying colors.
The Bruins suffocated the Panthers en route to a 4-2 win. They outshot them, 38-21. At 5-on-5 play, high-danger chances were 15-5 in favor of Boston. When one of the Bruins’ top two lines was on the ice, they outshot the Panthers 22-8 and outscored them 3-0. Protecting a one-goal against the team with the most third-period comebacks in the league, the Bruins held the Panthers to just three shots on goal in the third.
“We did a good job with that,” Cassidy said of his team’s defensive play. “I don't think we gave up much. … At the end of the day, the whole picture, especially the third period, you’re protecting a one-goal lead, and we didn’t give up -- maybe one or two chances. So that’s good. They [the Panthers] didn't look like to me that they had their usual jump tonight for whatever reason. Some of that is, we've got to take our share of credit for getting in their way.
“It might've just been one of those nights, but I certainly liked the way our team performed. Even offensively, I thought we generated a lot, as well as playing well defensively to get pucks back. Against good offensive teams, that’s one of the better formulas, right? If you get pucks back and check well, then you force them to defend, they get a little frustrated because they’re used to scoring. So maybe that was a little of what took place over there -- I don't know -- but our game was solid.”
Cassidy might be right about the Panthers having a bit of an off night, but it’s worth noting that the Panthers should’ve been pretty motivated to not have an off night given that they were coming off an embarrassing 8-4 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning. And off night or not, the Bruins were still the first team to hold the Panthers under three goals in a month.
This was reminiscent of last Tuesday when the Bruins similarly shut down the St. Louis Blues, the only team that’s scored more goals than the Panthers since the March 21 trade deadline. Add in a 3-1 win over the New York Rangers -- not quite an elite offense, but still one with some dangerous players -- on Saturday and it’s becoming a pretty impressive late-season resume the Bruins are putting together.
The Bruins have been one of the best defensive teams all season, but this kind of finish may have been needed to put a few late-March/early-April hiccups behind them. All that’s left now is Thursday against the Buffalo Sabres (a game against a non-playoff team with nothing to lose that’s been playing some wide-open hockey) and Friday against the Toronto Maple Leafs (a game in which the Bruins are probably going to rest a bunch of their regulars).
If the Bruins are going to make any sort of deep playoff run, they know it’s going to be built on defense. And while it’s not always easy to be fully committed to playing defense for a full 82-game regular season, players can buy in this time of year when they see what it can do for them. Heck, Taylor Hall called it fun.
“Whoever it is, we’re gonna have to be good defensively. And that’s really, like I said, our identity,” said Hall, whose line scored two goals in six seconds in the first period. “It’s not something we have to change or do anything different. We just have to play that structure well. It’s fun. It’s fun shutting down other teams. Especially our line -- we’re an offensive line, but when we’re good in our end and we get pucks back, the sky’s the limit. I feel like our whole team kind of buys into that.”
It looks like the Bruins are destined to face the Carolina Hurricanes in the first round at this point. They’re one of the few teams in the Eastern Conference that buys into defense as much as the Bruins do, and you will hear plenty about the Hurricanes outscoring the Bruins 16-1 in their three meetings this season.
That shouldn’t be completely ignored, but the last of those games was two and a half months ago. The Bruins have a better record than Carolina since then and added more at the trade deadline in the form of Hampus Lindholm. The Hurricanes also have major questions in net right now, as season-long No. 1 Frederik Andersen may not be ready for the start of the first round as he recovers from an injury. Antti Raanta and rookie Pyotr Kochetkov have both struggled recently.
Linus Ullmark, meanwhile, continues to answer whatever goaltending questions the Bruins may have had. He has stopped 49 of the 52 shots he’s faced in two games since returning from an upper-body injury and is now 8-1-0 with a .937 save percentage since March 15. Jeremy Swayman has played a little better of late as well, but is probably the 1B or 2 right now.
The Bruins probably don’t have the offense to survive a bunch of shootouts against the NHL’s best offensive teams. But they’re showing that they just might have the defense and goaltending to smother those offenses and give themselves a chance against anyone.