Bruins can smell playoffs after big comeback, 4-point weekend

How many biggest wins of the year can one team have in a nine-day span? For the Boston Bruins, the answer might be four.

There was last Saturday's 4-2 win in Detroit, against a Red Wings team that was tied with the Bruins for the first wild card spot at the time.

There was Wednesday's 4-3 overtime win in Buffalo, a bounce-back performance after a bad home loss to Toronto, on the second night of a back-to-back, against a Sabres team that has the best record in the NHL since Dec. 1.

There was this Saturday's 6-3 win over the Minnesota Wild, a statement performance against one of maybe a handful of teams widely considered to be a legitimate Stanley Cup contender.

Then there was Sunday evening's 4-3 shootout win on the road against the Columbus Blue Jackets, another one of those Eastern Conference bubble teams the Bruins have been battling with. And this one has to take the cake when it comes to that "biggest win of the year" title.

The Bruins looked dead on arrival in this one. The Blue Jackets won every battle and every race early on, and stormed out to a 2-0 lead in the game's first eight minutes.

Tanner Jeannot and Mark Kastelic tried to wake their teammates up with back-to-back heavyweight bouts against Erik Gudbranson and Mathieu Olivier, respectively. It seemed to work, briefly, but then David Pastrnak took a tripping penalty and Columbus made it 3-0 on the ensuing power play.

Bruins coach Marco Sturm would not have been questioned if he decided to pull Jeremy Swayman at the first intermission – not because Swayman was bad in the first period, but because the team around him seemed to be no-showing. Perhaps a little bit of rest would have been better for Swayman than being hung out to dry the first time all season that he was asked to start back-to-back days.

Sturm didn't pull Swayman, though, and the Bruins didn't wave the white flag. They picked up their play in the second period and outshot Columbus 12-5 in the frame. But they still didn't score, so they still trailed 3-0 heading to the third.

Again, the opportunity was there for the Bruins to just call it a night and regroup for another tough game against Dallas on Tuesday. They didn't do that, though. Instead, they mounted their biggest comeback of the season in arguably their best period of the season.

At the 6:29 mark of the third, Charlie McAvoy cut it to 3-1, beating Jet Greaves through a Viktor Arvidsson screen after Pavel Zacha won a battle on the forecheck.

A few minutes later, Fraser Minten drew a slashing call, and the Bruins' new-look top power-play unit – with Arvidsson and Casey Mittelstadt replacing Morgan Geekie and Elias Lindholm – needed just six seconds to make it a one-goal game. Zacha won the draw, Arvidsson worked the puck back to McAvoy, and then McAvoy fired a shot that Zacha deflected past Greaves.

The Bruins kept the pressure on, but it took a bit to find the tying goal. McAvoy drew a late tripping penalty on Boone Jenner, and Sturm pulled Swayman to create a 6-on-4 advantage. With just 11 seconds remaining, Arvidsson made a great play to force a turnover right in front of the Columbus net, and Zacha pounced on the loose puck for the game-tying goal.

No one scored in overtime, but Minten and Arvidsson did in the shootout to complete the comeback and finish off a massive four-point weekend.

If it feels like you just read the same names over and over again, it's because those are the guys consistently stepping up the most right now.

Zacha scored four goals this weekend and now has 13 goals and nine assists in the last 16 games. He tied his career high in points on Sunday (59) and added to what was already a career high in goals (28).

Arvidsson had a five-point weekend, and also scored the shootout winner Sunday. That whole line of Arvidsson, Zacha and Mittelstadt continues to be outstanding. They are now plus-22 at 5-on-5 on the season, tied for the best goal differential of any line in the NHL.

McAvoy was excellent Sunday, especially during the third-period comeback. His two points bring him up to 57 on the season, a new career high. And he's done that with eight games still to go, and despite missing 12 games with a broken jaw earlier this season.

Swayman started games on back-to-back days for just the second time in his career, and the first since November 2021. In 12 starts since the Olympic break, he is 8-3-1 with a .923 save percentage and he leads the NHL in goals saved above expected in that time.

After Sunday's comeback win, the Bruins are now six points clear of the playoff cut line with 92 points in 74 games. They have the fifth-best record in the conference and eighth-best record in the league. According to both MoneyPuck and HockeyStats, they now have a 90% chance to make the playoffs.

Nothing's done yet, and the Bruins do still have a tough schedule the rest of the way. But they have been rising to meet just about every challenge, and now they really can start to smell that playoff berth.