Maybe a good old-fashioned Monday morning bag skate was just what the Bruins needed. The NHL’s top team shook off a sluggish Saturday night in Montreal by racing out to a 5-0 lead en route to a comfortable 5-2 win over the Sabres Tuesday night in Buffalo.
Bruins' offense catches fire in win over Sabres
It was the second time this season the Bruins scored five goals in a game, with both coming in the last week. Perhaps even more encouraging than the number of goals was how they got them. Four players – Danton Heinen, Brandon Carlo, Oskar Steen and Hampus Lindholm – scored their first goal of the season. Boston’s leading scorer, David Pastrnak, got the other.
First goals of the season are always noteworthy, especially when you’re over a month in and get this many of them in one game. So, let’s run through some notes on all four.
Danton Heinen
Just over three minutes into the game, Heinen scored the first goal of his second stint with the Bruins when he poked home a rebound off a Charlie McAvoy shot. It was his first goal as a Bruin since Jan. 7, 2020, which was about a month and a half before he got traded to Anaheim.
This was Heinen’s seventh game since starting the season on an extended professional tryout that saw him practicing and traveling with the team, but not playing games for the first couple weeks. He has clearly been getting more comfortable and more up-to-speed, and his ice time has slowly ticked up as a result.
On Tuesday, he got rewarded with his first goal. It was important for him, and for his line. Heinen got moved up to the third line when Morgan Geekie suffered an upper-body injury on Nov. 6. The trio of him, Matt Poitras and Jake DeBrusk had a promising first game together against the Islanders despite not scoring, but followed it up with a quiet night against the Canadiens (not that they were alone in that).
All three were involved in Heinen’s goal, with DeBrusk winning the puck on the forecheck, Poitras wheeling around the offensive zone and making a couple nice passes to his defensemen, and then Heinen getting to the front for a greasy rebound goal.
That line continued to do the job defensively, too, and has now not allowed a goal against in their 27 minutes together.
Brandon Carlo
Carlo scored the Bruins’ third goal of the first period. During a 4-on-4 situation, he jumped into a 3-on-1 rush with Pastrnak and Pavel Zacha and finished off a pretty no-look from Pastrnak, despite partially whiffing on the shot.
Carlo has been excellent defensively this season while matching up with opponents’ top lines, getting even more defensive-zone starts than last season, and playing nearly two minutes more per game than last year. Of 118 defensemen who have played at least 200 5-on-5 minutes this season, Carlo has been on the ice for the third-fewest goals against per 60 minutes. He also leads the Bruins in penalty-kill minutes, and the Bruins have the NHL’s best PK.
Goals and points have never been a big part of Carlo’s game, and they’re not really how he’s judged. But he is expected to activate and contribute offensively when the situation calls for it, like it did Tuesday. Carlo now has four points in 15 games this season, which actually puts him on pace to top 20 points for the first time in his career.
One last note on Carlo’s goal: Linus Ullmark made a great read to come way out of his net and break up what could have been a 2-on-0 for Buffalo. The Sabres wound up with three players caught behind the play because of it.
Oskar Steen
Steen appeared to score his first goal of the season Saturday night, only to have it waved off for a little bit of light goalie interference upon review. There was no taking back Tuesday’s tally, which extended the Bruins’ lead to 4-0 early in the second. Under forechecking pressure from fellow fourth-liners Johnny Beecher and Jakub Lauko, Sabres defenseman Owen Power gift-wrapped a scoring chance to Steen with an ill-advised pass, and Steen calmly turned and snapped a shot past goalie Devon Levi.
Steen has played well in eight games since being called up from Providence, but didn’t have any points to show for it before Tuesday. He’s actually in a really interesting spot right now, because the Bruins do have a bit of a decision to make over the next week.
Steen had to clear waivers before the Bruins could send him down to Providence to start the season. They could send him back down without needing waivers right now, but that changes once he hits 10 games played. Then he would require waivers again. If there’s someone looking for fourth-line help, it’s possible Steen could get claimed by another team.
That said, the Bruins’ best lineup right now has Steen in it. His energy, forechecking and willingness to go to dirty areas makes him a good fit with Beecher and Lauko. Maybe he’ll get shuffled out once Milan Lucic and/or Morgan Geekie return, but it’s unclear exactly when that will be. Geekie is week-to-week with an upper-body injury. He skated at Warrior Ice Arena before Monday’s practice.
Lucic’s recovery from a lower-body injury is going slower than initially anticipated. He was on the ice at Warrior late last week, but not on Monday. While he is eligible to return from long-term injured reserve on Saturday, he almost certainly won’t be activated then, with Montgomery noting that Lucic is probably about a week behind schedule.
So, do the Bruins just keep playing Steen and worry about what to do with him if/when they actually have a fully healthy lineup? Steen, of course, could force the Bruins’ hand into keeping him around even after Lucic and Geekie return. Or do they send him down before his 10th game in a bit of organizational depth management?
Hampus Lindholm
As Carlo’s partner, Lindholm has been tasked with a lot of the same assignments as Carlo and has joined him in performing their shutdown duties well. Remember how Carlo is third among all defensemen in goals against when he’s on the ice? Lindholm is right behind him in fourth.
But there are higher offensive expectations for Lindholm after a 53-point season last year, and before Tuesday, he had just two points in 14 games. Tuesday’s goal, a one-timer from the point on the power play, was much-needed, and had to have felt good.
Beyond the goal, Lindholm had a season-high five shots on goal. The Bruins have needed to get their defensemen more involved offensively. Entering Tuesday, they had just four goals and 25 points from defensemen on the season, ranking in the bottom quarter of the league in both.
Lindholm was part of a clear effort to make that happen on Tuesday. Carlo had three shots on goal and the goal of his own. McAvoy had two assists, rotating low in the offensive zone for a rebound-inducing shot on Heinen’s goal and then leading the transition to help set up Pastrnak’s. Mason Lohrei made a nice play at the offensive blue line in the build-up to Heinen’s goal as well.
“They have to be more shot-ready, but I think it's more of a result of us not having as much O-zone time,” Montgomery said on Monday when asked about getting his defensemen more involved.
On Tuesday, the Bruins got both: More offensive-zone time and more shot-ready defensemen.