With 12:28 left in the third period Tuesday night, during a TV timeout, some Bruins fans in TD Garden began chanting “Fire Sweeney,” not for the first time this season. They had grown restless watching this undertalented Boston team, one that general manager Don Sweeney had further gutted at Friday’s trade deadline, fall behind 2-0 against the hated Florida Panthers, the team to which Sweeney had traded Brad Marchand.
Twelve minutes of game action later, the Garden was as raucous as it’s been all season. The Bruins had come all the way back to take a 3-2 lead, and Nikita Zadorov, one of Sweeney’s most criticized signings, had just pummeled Sam Bennett, public enemy No. 1 around these parts, in a last-second fight. As Zadorov left the ice, he egged the crowd on, whipping them into a further frenzy.
You’ll have to forgive Bruins fans for the bipolar nature of their support right now. The season was supposed to be over. A team that was already trending toward missing the playoffs was supposed to now be even worse. The front office, with the support of ownership, had thrown in the towel and traded away some of their favorite players. Outside of the first line, the roster that was left behind looked more like an AHL team than an NHL one.
And yet… this new-look, ragtag squad just might be winning them over. They don’t look dead at all. In fact, the Bruins look more alive and more energized than they have all season. Since the deadline and the firesale that accompanied it, they are 2-0 with wins over two of the hottest teams in the NHL, having shut out the Tampa Bay Lightning 4-0 on Saturday before mounting a third-period comeback to beat the Panthers 3-2 on Tuesday.
While everyone else – from their bosses to their fans to the media covering the team – had given up, the players themselves have not. It was a mantra first declared publicly by David Pastrnak after Saturday’s win.
“We are here to fight till the end,” Pastrnak said. “We are not gonna go away. We’re gonna keep battling until the last game and see where it takes us.”
Pastrnak is certainly doing his part to back it up. He started Tuesday’s comeback with a power-play goal. He finished it with a great setup to Pavel Zacha, spinning off all-world defender Gustav Forsling before feeding a perfect backhand pass to the front. Pastrnak continues to lead the league in goals (20) and points (44) since Jan. 1. He now has 81 points on the season, more than double his closest teammate. He became just the fifth Bruin ever to record six 80-point seasons with the team, joining Ray Bourque (10x), Phil Esposito (8x), Bobby Orr (6x) and Rick Middleton (6x).
Pastrnak has been forced to step up off the ice, too. With Marchand, Charlie Coyle and Brandon Carlo all gone, and Charlie McAvoy and Hampus Lindholm both out injured, Pastrnak has been the only Bruin wearing a captain’s letter these last two games. He was the only leader left in the room down in Tampa when the team got blown up on Friday.
“He’s been so good, and just a natural leader,” Jeremy Swayman said of Pastrnak Tuesday night. “…A ton of kudos to him for the way that he’s done it gracefully and just taking it with open arms. It’s not an easy ask, and he’s done a really good job with it so far.”
Swayman, too, has stepped up. He has stopped 51 of the 53 shots he’s faced since the deadline (.962 save percentage), including all seven high-danger shots he faced Tuesday.
The Bruins are embracing the never-say-die attitude. It’s a mantra that is now being repeated throughout the room. As he did after his fight, Zadorov added some flare Tuesday night when describing the team’s approach these last four days.
“All the guys since Friday have been showing up ready to work, ready to work their balls off, and play for the crest,” Zadorov said. “There's no quit in this team.”
Zadorov has been vocal this season about having no plans to miss the playoffs. His play hasn’t always backed up the words in what has been an inconsistent-at-best first year in Boston. In these last two games, it certainly has. He’s been awesome. In addition to the crowd-pleasing beatdown of Bennett, he has also paired with deadline addition Henri Jokiharju to form a surprisingly effective shutdown pair that has also been able to activate offensively and extend offensive-zone possessions. In their 30 5-on-5 minutes together, the Bruins have out-attempted opponents 40-20, outshot them 17-7 and outscored them 1-0, while holding a 7-3 advantage in high-danger chances.
Jokiharju, who played over 20 minutes Tuesday, is one of several newcomers who has stepped up. Casey Mittelstadt has made the most noticeable contributions, picking up an assist in each of his first two games a Bruin. He set up Pastrnak to start Tuesday’s comeback with a nice pass out of the corner, taking advantage of a good second effort by Elias Lindholm to move the puck down to him.
Marat Khusnutdinov and Jakub Lauko haven’t found the scoresheet yet, but they’ve brought noticeable speed and energy to the lineup. Their relentless puck pursuit forced the turnover that led to the Bruins’ tying goal Tuesday, with the puck popping out to the high slot for Mason Lohrei, who finished with a slick drag-and-snap.
“We’re hard to play against now, and we’re a fast team,” Zacha said, perfectly summing up the shift in this team’s playing style the last two games.
Any objective analysis of these post-deadline Bruins would tell you that they still have a limited ceiling. They’re rolling out a middle-six forward group that features Khusnutdinov, Lauko, Cole Koepke and Vinni Lettieri. With all due respect to those guys, there’s just a serious lack of NHL-caliber offensive talent there.
What the Bruins have, though, at least in these last couple games, is hard work and motivation. Maybe they’re motivated by everyone counting them out. Maybe all the trades forced them to wake up. Maybe they know they’re still just two points out of a playoff spot and really want to make a push. The new guys are motivated by a fresh start. Others are motivated by the opportunity to play more minutes than they otherwise would.
Interim head coach Joe Sacco doesn’t care where his players are turning for that motivation; he just likes that it’s there.
“We understand where we're at in the standings, and we understand what just transpired with our group,” Sacco said. “But we have new players here. It's opportunity for these guys. However they want it, whatever motivates them, if it's the underdog role, taking that on. If it's, ‘I have an opportunity here maybe that I did not have before somewhere else.’ But what I'm trying to do, and what we're trying to do as a staff, is we want to see us come together as a team as quickly as we can. And I think that produces winning hockey.”
It has so far. We’ll see if it continues to. Next up is a big road game Thursday night against the Ottawa Senators, one of the teams they’re chasing in the wild card race.