Bruins win 2 without Bergeron and Krejci, push Panthers to brink
When Don Sweeney traded Erik Haula for Pavel Zacha last summer, it wasn’t just in the hopes that Zacha would be a younger, bigger, more versatile forward for this season. He also had an eye to the future, and the possibility that Zacha could be part of the equation for eventually replacing Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci up the middle.
When Sweeney traded for Dmitry Orlov, Garnet Hathaway and Tyler Bertuzzi before this season’s trade deadline, it wasn’t just to improve the Bruins’ already ample depth. He also wanted to bring in players who profiled as “playoff players,” guys who brought attitude and physicality and were hard to play against.
In both cases, Sweeney knocked it out of the park, and it’s paying massive dividends in Boston’s first-round series against the Florida Panthers. The Bruins now lead that series, 3-1, after Sunday’s 6-2 win. They have taken that commanding lead with Bergeron missing all four games and Krejci missing the last two. Sweeney’s trade acquisitions are a huge reason they’ve been able to not just survive, but thrive.
Zacha, who didn’t even play center most of the regular season, has become the Bruins’ de facto No. 1 center ahead of schedule with the two veteran leaders out. He leads Bruins centers in ice time and is third among all Boston forwards behind only David Pastrnak and Brad Marchand.
Zacha has four assists in the series, which is tied for second on the team. Two of those came on Sunday, with his shots leading to rebound goals for Marchand and Jake DeBrusk. Zacha has yet to score a goal in the series, but he is tied for third on the team with 12 shots on goal, so you would expect that to change soon. Until then, he’ll be happy to have his shots create those aforementioned rebound goals.
Even more impressive than Zacha’s assists is his two-way dominance. He leads all players on both teams in Corsi (61.6%) and expected goals share (73.4%) at 5-on-5 this series. The Bruins have outshot the Panthers 41-16 and outscored them 5-1 with him on the ice.
Zacha has done it centering several different line combinations, including a midgame switch that landed him with Taylor Hall and Jake DeBrusk for the third period Sunday. All they did in their 3:28 together was outshoot the Panthers 4-1 and combine for the goal that extended Boston’s lead to 4-2, with Zacha starting the chance by winning a puck back in the neutral zone.
The only player on either team with more assists in this series than Zacha is Orlov. The veteran defenseman picked up his fifth with a power-play helper on Sunday, getting open on the right wing to take a pass from Hall before immediately zipping the puck right to DeBrusk’s tape at the net-front for a tap-in finish.
Orlov has had at least one assist in every game this series. He had two in Game 3 on Friday, making a pair of beautiful stretch passes that sprung Hall and Pastrnak for goals. Orlov has been on the ice for five of the Bruins’ 10 5-on-5 goals in this series, most among Bruins defensemen and tied with Zacha, Hall and DeBrusk for the team lead. He has been on the ice for just two 5-on-5 goals against.
One of the two Bruins who has more points than Orlov in this series is Bertuzzi (the other is Hall, who has a team-leading seven, and who was a trade deadline acquisition himself two years ago). Bertuzzi had a goal and an assist Sunday, helping to set up Marchand’s power-play goal in the first period and then tipping in a Brandon Carlo shot in the second. He has six points (2g, 4a) in the series and has points in all four games.
Bertuzzi is right behind Zacha in ice time (16:57 per game), has 12 shots on goal, is tied for fourth on the team with 11 hits, and is second among forwards with six blocks. He has gotten under the Panthers’ skin with some agitation tactics, like stealing Nick Cousins’ stick in Game 1, and has stood up for teammates, racking up a pair of 10-minute misconducts late in Games 2 and 3 for jumping right into the middle of brawls.
Hathaway doesn’t have the point totals or ice time of Zacha, Orlov and Bertuzzi, although he did pick up his first point of the series with an assist on Hall’s empty-netter Sunday. What he does have is 18 hits (second on the team behind Charlie McAvoy) and eight blocks (third on the team, first among forwards).
Oh, and Hathaway and linemate Tomas Nosek are the only two Bruins who have played all four games and have yet to be on the ice for a 5-on-5 goal against, despite having a higher percentage of their shifts start in the defensive zone than anyone else.
When Sweeney dreamed up best-case scenarios after these trades, they probably looked something like this. Of course, those dreams all end with the Bruins winning the Stanley Cup. There is still a long ways to go before that part can come true. But for now, in Round 1, his acquisitions just since last summer are a big reason the B’s have been able to overcome injuries that would have sunk most other teams.
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