"Top guys need to be your top guys."
Bruins coach Marco Sturm was answering a question specifically about his forwards when he said that Thursday night, but Boston's actual top guys recently have not been forwards. They've been goalie Jeremy Swayman and defenseman Charlie McAvoy.
On Saturday afternoon, those two were just enough to lead Boston to a big 3-2 shootout win over the Washington Capitals. The victory snapped the Bruins' seven-game road losing streak, a drought that dated back nearly two full months to Jan. 17 (with a three-week Olympic break mixed in, of course).
Swayman stopped 25 of the 27 shots he faced in regulation and overtime, including six of the high-danger variety, according to Natural Stat Trick. His best work, however, may have come in the shootout, where he turned aside all nine Washington attempts before Fraser Minten finally walked it off in the bottom of the ninth. The nine rounds tied the longest shootout in the NHL this season.
McAvoy, meanwhile, scored both Bruins goals in regulation, recording his first two-goal game since Dec. 1, 2024. The first was a slap shot that he didn't get all of, or even most of, but it managed to flutter through a Minten screen and past Logan Thompson. The second was a net-front tip of a Pavel Zacha point shot, as McAvoy had popped up in an unfamiliar spot after helping out on the forecheck.
Both Swayman and McAvoy continue to play some of the best hockey of their careers. Swayman's 26 wins are a new career high, and good for fourth in the NHL this season. His 21.3 goals saved above expected (according to MoneyPuck) rank third in the NHL. On Saturday, he outdueled one of the two goalies ahead of him in Thompson (24.2). Since the Olympic break, Swayman is 4-2-0 with a .924 save percentage.
McAvoy now has a six-game point streak, with eight points during that time. He has a point in 15 of his last 16 games dating back to Jan. 22, with 20 points (6g, 14a) during that time. His 0.91 points per game on the season is easily the best mark of his career, and ranks ninth among defensemen this season. His 49 points rank 10th – despite missing 12 games with a broken jaw – and are now just seven shy of his career high.
"You always need a driver," Sturm said of McAvoy. "In the room, off the ice, on the ice. He has a little swagger now, especially after Olympics. It's nice to see, because you need those drivers. Especially when they get rewarded, it's even better."
It's not crazy to suggest that Swayman and McAvoy deserve to at least be mentioned in the Vezina and Norris Trophy conversations, respectively, even if neither is especially close to being a favorite (Swayman is closer, as he is actually third in Vezina odds at the moment, but still well behind Andrei Vasilevskiy and Ilya Sorokin).
The Bruins need their two Olympic gold medalists to keep playing at this level, because they are clearly still trying to figure out how to jumpstart their top forwards.
Sturm shook up his lines in a big way Saturday, with only the tried and true second line of Casey Mittelstadt, Pavel Zacha and Viktor Arvidsson staying the same. He moved Minten up to first-line center between David Pastrnak and Morgan Geekie, while dropping Elias Lindholm to the third line between Marat Khusnutdinov and Tanner Jeannot.
The results were mixed. Minten scored in the shootout, and the new-look first line was on the ice for McAvoy's first goal, but otherwise, scoring chances were still pretty hard to come by for Pastrnak and Geekie.
The new third line actually generated a few good chances, but they were also on the ice for both goals against. Khusnutdinov went for an ill-timed change on Washington's first goal, and Lindholm inadvertently deflected the second goal past Swayman.
The power play continued to struggle on Saturday, too, going 0-for-4 and most notably wasting 39 seconds of a 5-on-3 in the third period without getting a single shot. The Bruins' man advantage, a strength for so much of this season, is now 4-for-32 (12.5%) in nine games since the break with two shorthanded goals against.
But, above all, the Bruins really just needed a road win Saturday, and Swayman and McAvoy made sure they got it. In the process, they jumped ahead of the Detroit Red Wings and into the first wild card spot, putting a team between themselves and the cut line for the first time since Feb. 1 – at least until Detroit plays later Saturday night.
The Bruins' three-game road trip continues with a back-to-back Monday in New Jersey and Tuesday in Montreal.