This was supposed to be the measuring stick. It was supposed to be the Bruins’ first game with their full post-trade deadline lineup, against the two-time defending champion Lightning and their full post-deadline lineup.
Except then Patrice Bergeron was somewhat surprisingly not cleared to return. Surely that was going to put a damper on things. How much would we really learn about how the Bruins stack up if they didn’t have their captain and No. 1 center?
Quite a bit, as it turns out. If no Bergeron meant no chance against Tampa Bay, someone forgot to tell the Bruins. They went out and made a clear statement Thursday night at TD Garden, earning a 3-2 win over the Lightning and declaring that not only do they measure up to the champs, but they can beat them.
For much of the night, the Bruins looked like the faster team. They looked like the more physical team. They controlled play for long stretches, including one in the second period when they outshot the Lightning 15-1 through the first 13 minutes. They finished the night with a 39-24 shots advantage.
On the scoreboard, the game was not as one-sided. The Lightning actually opened the scoring with a Brandon Hagel shorthanded goal off a Brad Marchand turnover, the lowest lowlight from the one area where the Bruins weren’t nearly good enough: the power play. After David Pastrnak tied the game, Tampa took the lead again early in the third on one of the few occasions that the Bruins failed to clean up the front of the net, allowing Steven Stamkos to swoop in and bury a loose puck.
The Pastrnak Show ensured the Bruins would get the two points, though -- and they’d get them in regulation, vaulting them ahead of the Lightning in the standings for the first time since Oct. 25. Pastrnak made it 2-2 with 11:43 to go when he somehow squeezed a shot between Andrei Vasilevskiy and the post. Then he completed the hat trick and gave the Bruins the lead with 4:10 to go when he buried a rebound.
Pastrnak was the deserving First Star of the game, but he was not the Bruins’ only star on the night. Linemate Erik Haula assisted on all three of his goals, making a nice indirect pass in transition on the first, combining with Pastrnak for some strong work below the goal line on the second, and making a great play to keep the puck in the zone on the third.
With so many questioning the Bruins after not acquiring a No. 2 center before the trade deadline, Haula seems to be on a mission to answer those questions and alleviate some concerns. He now has five assists in two games since the deadline. The Bruins outshot the Lightning 11-1 with the second line on the ice.
The third star worth highlighting was the player everyone was most excited to see: new defenseman Hampus Lindholm. His Bruins debut could not have gone much better, as he looked excellent in all facets. Lindholm shut down some of Tampa’s most dangerous forwards in his own zone, consistently protected the puck and started clean breakouts, and was active in the offensive zone.
Lindholm picked up his first Bruins point with an assist on Pastrnak’s first goal when he fended off a forecheck from Hagel, turned up ice, and started the rush the other way with a short, clean pass to Haula. He nearly had another assist a couple minutes later when he jumped into the rush and set up Trent Frederic on the doorstep, but Frederic’s redirect hit the post.
Lindholm and Charlie McAvoy seemed to click immediately. With those two on the ice together at 5-on-5, the Bruins held advantages of 21-9 in shot attempts, 12-2 in shots on goals, 10-3 in scoring chances, and 2-0 in goals. The three Lightning they matched up against the most? Nikita Kucherov, Brayden Point and Victor Hedman. That’s what dominating a tough assignment looks like.
“I think he was, actually, maybe a better puck-mover in small areas than I anticipated,” coach Bruce Cassidy said of Lindholm. “Thinking more about the size and mobility, ability to close plays, get his shot through on the offensive blue line -- but he made a lot of small-area plays on the breakout that’s going to benefit this hockey club. The skate moves where he puts someone on his hip, strong enough to separate and hold onto a puck and bring another forechecker to him, then bump it into the middle … He led some really nice breakouts tonight, did a real good job with that.”
Maybe the Bruins just caught the Lightning on a bad night. We wondered the same thing after their previous two meetings this season, when the B’s took them to overtime despite not having Marchand or McAvoy in the lineup and then smoked them, 5-2, in Tampa. The Lightning are clearly in a rut right now, having lost six of their last eight. Everyone expects they’ll be playing better hockey once the playoffs arrive.
Or maybe three times is a trend, and this year’s Bruins can actually play with, and beat, this year’s Lightning. Again, they were the ones missing a star player Thursday night; the Lightning had their full complement. At the very least, the Bruins should have some confidence if they meet in the playoffs and not be intimidated.
It’s also possible that the Lightning aren’t the true measuring stick in the East right now anyways. That could be the Hurricanes (a team that has crushed the Bruins in all three meetings this season) or Panthers (a team the Bruins haven’t faced since October).
But it’s hard not to feel like everything still runs through Tampa until someone actually knocks the Lightning out. And while one or even three regular-season games may ultimately mean nothing come playoffs, the Bruins have at least offered some reason to think that they could be the ones to do that knocking out.
“This is the two-time defending Stanley Cup champions, so we're excited we won and played well, but we're not getting ahead of ourselves here,” Cassidy said. “We know who Tampa Bay is, they know who they are, and the road runs through them eventually. But this is good. It's good for the guys in the room to know that if we play a certain way, we have a chance to beat them and outplay them in certain areas.”