The good news for the Bruins Saturday night is that they beat the Flyers, in regulation, and are now once again first in the NHL in points with 95. The bad news is that after they went up 5-2 early in the third period, things got way too close for comfort and they barely hung on for the 6-5 win.
Will the Bruins end the goalie rotation before the playoffs?
Boston and Philadelphia entered the third period tied 2-2, but three goals in a 2:56 span from Charlie Coyle, Johnny Beecher and Jake DeBrusk gave the Bruins what seemed like a commanding three-goal lead with 15:56 to go.
But as has been the case too many times this season, the Bruins did not actually take command as the third period wore on. The Flyers, who are barely clinging to a playoff spot, turned up the desperation levels and scored two goals 1:02 apart to cut Boston’s lead to one with 4:46 to go.
The Bruins, to their credit, didn’t seem to panic, and extended the lead back to two with 2:59 remaining when Trent Frederic blocked a shot in the defensive zone and Danton Heinen sniped the top corner on a rush the other way.
The Bruins, to their detriment, once again did not make things easy on themselves. The Flyers pulled the goalie, pinned Boston in its own end, won a battle down low, and scored on a Joel Farabee wraparound just 55 seconds after Heinen’s goal.
The Bruins held on from there, but the fact that closing out games continues to be a struggle with just 13 games remaining in the regular season leaves a bit of a sour taste.
“We gotta learn that you gotta close out games. You can’t just think it’s over,” Bruins coach Jim Montgomery said. “The other teams are desperate. It's like a playoff game. There's gonna be those momentum and emotional swings, and we gotta be a little bit better and a little more mature as a team to be able to close out games a little bit easier, especially when you’re up by two.”
There was a common theme from past blown leads that resurfaced for the Bruins: Too many lost battles down low in the defensive zone.
“We started getting beat to our goal line,” Montgomery said. “They started moving and they started beating us to loose pucks below our net, and they were beating us to the net-front afterwards. After the first goal, we addressed it, and it didn't get better.”
Here are three more takeaways from the game:
Charlie Coyle drives the offense
Coyle had gone eight games without a goal before Saturday. He ended that slump in a big way against the Flyers, scoring twice to pace the Boston offense and set a new career high with 23 goals on the season.
Coyle’s first goal came on the power play late in the second period, when he finished off a tic-tac-toe passing play started by Pavel Zacha and Brad Marchand. His second started the flurry of goals early in the third period, when he came in fresh off the bench, took a pass from David Pastrnak, darted through the Philly defense, and roofed a shot past Felix Sandstrom.
Coyle already has his career high in goals, and his 54 points on the season are now just two off his career high there.
“He's been terrific all year, right?,” Montgomery said of Coyle. “Now he’s set a career high in goals for a season, and I think he's gonna continue to set career highs and establish his goals and points, besides the important minutes he plays for us.”
Pavel Zacha, Jake DeBrusk stay hot
It feels like I could just pencil this in as a takeaway every game for the last couple weeks, and that’s because, well, I could.
DeBrusk set up Morgan Geekie for the Bruins’ first goal, driving up the middle and drawing three defenders to himself before dishing over to the wing. Then he scored the fifth himself, collecting a loose puck in the slot, dangling around Sandstrom, and tucking the puck inside the post. DeBrusk now has nine points (4 goals, 5 assists) in the last seven games.
Zacha helped set up Boston’s second goal, winning an offensive-zone faceoff on the power play with a second effort and then sliding the puck over to Brad Marchand, who then fed Coyle in front for the goal. Zacha now has a seven-game point streak, with five goals and five assists during that time.
It can’t be overstated how crucial Zacha and DeBrusk are as the Bruins build towards the playoffs. When you look at the Bruins’ top six, it’s led by a superstar in David Pastrnak, a still-very-good Marchand, and a Coyle who’s having a career year. The sixth guy has generally been either James van Riemsdyk or Danton Heinen, who are both making $1 million or less and who are both probably a line higher than they should be when they’re up there.
Zacha and DeBrusk occupy the crucial fourth and fifth spots that are going to decide whether the Bruins’ top six is good enough to win in the spring or not. If they’re playing the way they have been recently, the B’s have a chance to make some noise. If they go quiet at the wrong time, Boston will be fighting an uphill battle.
James van Riemsdyk honored
For the second time in a month, the Bruins held a pregame ceremony to celebrate one of their forwards reaching 1,000 career games.
Van Riemsdyk’s ceremony on Saturday may not have meant quite as much to Boston fans as Marchand’s, given that Marchand has played all 1,000-plus games of his career as a Bruin, while van Riemsdyk has played 64 here. But it was still a great ceremony and a well deserved one for van Riemsdyk.
Van Riemsdyk’s family joined him on the ice. He received the customary silver stick; a painting that featured three images of him as a Bruin, a Flyer and a Maple Leaf (the three teams he’s played for); and two of his former Philadelphia teammates, Sean Couturier and Scott Laughton, presented him with framed lineup cards from his first NHL game and 1,000th game.
In a video played on the jumbotron, van Riemsdyk received congratulations messages from Bruins ownership and management, captain Brad Marchand, current teammate and longtime friend Kevin Shattenkirk, former University of New Hampshire coach Dick Umile, former Flyers coach Peter Laviolette, his parents, and his two brothers.
“I think the player is as advertised as far as the on-ice set,” Montgomery said of van Riemsdyk before the game. “What you don't know is the off-ice set. You don't know how good a teammate a guy is, and he's a real good teammate. Doesn't matter what line he's on, he's talking to his line about how best he can support them, and if it's a younger player about what they should be trying to accomplish on the ice to help younger players focus shift in, shift out. And then I think how unselfish he is. He's had tremendous success on the first power play. We move him to the second power, but he's never complained once. He just comes to work every day to get better, and that's why he's had 1,000 games in the league.”
For more Bruins talk, be sure to tune in to Sunday Skate with Andrew Raycroft, Scott McLaughlin and Bridgette Proulx, every Sunday 9-11 a.m. on WEEI 93.7 FM, WEEI.com, and the Audacy app.