Prior to Saturday’s game, Bruins coach Jim Montgomery was asked if he had been waiting for “the right time” to deliver the wakeup call to his team that came in the form of wind sprints during a March 25 practice.
Takeaways from Bruins' impressive road trip
“I'm not smart enough to wait for the right time,” Montgomery responded with a chuckle. “It's just real emotion.”
Maybe it wasn’t pre-planned, but it certainly seems like that was, in fact, the “right time” for that message. The Bruins played one of their best games of the season in a 4-3 win over the Panthers the next night in Florida.
A week and a half later, they’re still playing some of their best hockey of the season. They beat the Panthers again on Saturday, 3-2, in another emotional affair, this time in overtime at TD Garden. The Bruins are now 5-1-0 since that bag skate, with all five wins coming over teams currently in the playoffs or within a point of the playoffs.
Montgomery said his team wasn't ready for the playoffs after that ill-fated practice. Now?
“We’re getting close,” Montgomery said Saturday.
They are, and it’s not just the results that are rounding into playoff form for the Bruins. Even more important is the way they have been playing.
They’re playing physical against teams like the Panthers, Predators and Capitals that you have to be physical against in order to beat. Saturday was another game that required plenty of ice bags after, with lots of hitting between the whistles, and lots of shoving and scrumming after them. As has been the case all season in this series (which the Bruins have now swept, by the way), Boston went toe-to-toe with Florida in the physicality department and never backed down.
They’ve locked in defensively. They’re not giving up as many odd-man rushes as they were earlier in the season and they’re doing a better job protecting the front of their net. Even when they concede some zone time, they’re mostly keeping teams to the outside. They’ve held opponents to two goals or fewer in four straight games, and three or fewer in seven straight. They’re giving up an average of 27 shots on goal per game over their last six, well below their season average of 30.8. Their penalty kill is 16-for-18 (88.9%) during that stretch.
Parker Wotherspoon and Andrew Peeke deserve special recognition for the job they did against Matthew Tkachuk and Sam Bennett on Saturday. That was the line that gave the Bruins the most trouble in the playoffs last spring, but the Bruins’ new third pairing shut them down defensively while also matching their intensity and physicality.
“I thought they [brought some attitude] tonight,” Montgomery said of Wotherspoon and Peeke. “We purposely matched them up against Bennett and Tkachuk. They were physical. They were in their faces all night long. I think that's something that we're trying to build within our team as a whole group, is to be more in people's faces.”
They’re playing light-years better in late-game situations than they were earlier in the season. The Bruins extended third-period leads against Carolina and Nashville. They beat the Panthers in overtime on Saturday, after coming from behind in the third period to beat them a week and a half ago. They killed off a four-minute penalty in overtime against the Capitals before winning in a shootout.
“I think everybody's really comfortable with who we are, how we need to execute, the effort required, and the physicality that's required,” Montgomery said. “I think that's where our group now has confidence, and how to close out games, how to take games, and how to push games out of reach.”
Both goalies have seemingly hit their stride. Linus Ullmark has been excellent for the last month, and was again in Saturday’s win, stopping 28 of the 30 shots he faced. Jeremy Swayman has had a few hiccups since the All-Star break, but was terrific in his last start on Thursday, stopping 28 of 29 in a road win over the Hurricanes.
Their stars are stepping up offensively. David Pastrnak has eight points in these last six games. Linemates Pavel Zacha and Danton Heinen have nine and six, respectively. Brad Marchand has points in three straight, scoring his 400th career goal on Thursday and setting up Charlie Coyle for Boston’s second goal on Saturday. Charlie McAvoy scored the first goal Saturday as he continues to exhibit more of a shot-ready mentality.
The depth continues to chip in, too. Jesper Boqvist scored the overtime winner Saturday, stealing the puck in the defensive zone and taking off the other way before rifling a shot top shelf. Morgan Geekie had a big assist in Thursday’s win, and Johnny Beecher scored a big goal in last Saturday’s win over Washington.
Heck, even the power play scored on Saturday, snapping an 0-for-13 drought in the process. That came late in the second period after an ill-advised hit from behind by Tkachuk on Wotherspoon. After failing to make the Panthers pay for an undisciplined start in the first period, the Bruins finally did here, with Marchand making a nice pass to hit Coyle on a strong drive right down the slot.
Asked if there was any one thing in particular he could identify as a reason for these more dialed-in performances over the last two weeks, McAvoy settled on simplicity.
“There's a certain simplicity that we have to play, but it allows us to have success,” McAvoy said. “At times it might be boring, but it's winning hockey. It's getting the puck behind them, staying above them, being opportunistic, but overall not beating ourselves. Everybody at this level knows what's right and knows what's wrong.
“So, it was a sort of a little bit of a moment a couple weeks ago looking at ourselves and identifying like, ‘Hey, we know we're beating ourselves. We're giving up things that we shouldn't.’ So, it really was kind of something that we had to dig deep and be like, ‘We're gonna play simple and we're gonna play responsible.’ And we've done it for a couple weeks now and we've seen some good results.”
They certainly have. The Bruins still have four more games and a couple more weeks to go before Game 1 of the playoffs, but they look like a team that is figuring out how they need to play to have success once they get there.