It was a scene that could only happen at a pre-Christmas hockey game. Ten guys brawling on the ice, some punches being thrown, and “Feliz Navidad” blasting over the TD Garden PA system.
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It was… fun. The Boston Bruins’ 4-1 win over the Utah Mammoth had already been wrapped up. This last-minute scuffle was just a little bit of score-settling, nothing that was going to put a damper on the holiday spirit.
“Fun” was not a word the Bruins got to use much last season, when the season started poorly and really never got better. It’s a word they’re using now, though. It’s one of the reasons Charlie McAvoy wanted to get back from his broken jaw as soon as possible.
“Everybody’s having a good time. I want to be a part of it,” McAvoy said last week before making his return in Winnipeg.
Winning helps, of course. And the Bruins are winning more than they were at this time last year – but maybe not as dramatically as you’d think. They’re now 20-14-0 after Tuesday’s win, their fifth win in the last six games. Through 34 games last year, they were 17-13-4. They had underachieved, and there had already been a coaching change, but the bottom had not completely fallen out yet.
There is more to these newfound good times than wins and losses. These Bruins are building something that seemed to elude last year’s team: chemistry.
“I don't want to take a shot at last year or anything, because there's a lot of guys that aren't here anymore that I love deeply, but I think the chemistry this year, it feels a little different,” McAvoy said Tuesday morning.
That started at the start. As has been well documented at this point, last year’s Bruins got off to a completely disjointed start. Their training camp wasn’t good enough. They had some key players missing time early on while either recovering from injuries or dealing with new ones. Jeremy Swayman’s contract situation certainly didn’t help.
McAvoy and the rest of the Bruins' leadership group – namely David Pastrnak, Nikita Zadorov, and Hampus and Elias Lindholm – spent time this summer making sure this season would not start similarly.
“We were able to sort of water that seed a little more,” McAvoy said of the team-building process. “I know last year we were right on the road. We didn't get to do some of the bonding stuff to get to get to know each other. And then before we know it, Monty was fired. So, I mean, it was… whatever. But this year has just been a little bit different. We were able to kind of learn from the mistakes maybe of last year and find a way to get this team as cohesive, as close as we can. And I think that it's helped us in this first half a lot.”
Marco Sturm wasn’t here last year, but he too knew the Bruins needed to be more cohesive. He also knew it wasn’t going to happen overnight. In fact, he didn’t start to fully see the chemistry he needed to see until recently – well after Boston’s seven-game winning streak in early November.
“That's a tough question. I don't know when that switch came,” Sturm said Tuesday night. “I think, obviously when we were losing games, then we had that winning streak. Even when we were winning, that was not it. I think there was like weeks after that, I would say. I felt like, ‘OK, now we got it.’ … So, I can't really give you an exact date, but it was definitely way after our winning streak.”
Chemistry is one of those tricky sports intangibles. There’s no way to quantify how it actually affects a team’s win-loss record, if at all. Sturm himself acknowledged that there’s no guarantee good chemistry will “win us hockey games.” But he does believe it’s valuable, and spent time this summer studying some championship teams, including the 2024 Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles.
“It's huge in team sports,” he said. “If you look at even some other sports, it's everything. I follow a lot of other sports and championship teams and even coaches. The Philadelphia Eagles, that was my project. I was reading and looking up a lot of those teams. I like the coach, I like the chemistry they had, and I like the comments and everything. So, that's so important. We all gotta connect. We all gotta be like a family, like I always said, and the guys are showing it right now.”
They are showing it. And they’re winning. And they’re starting to believe in themselves, because they’re learning how to win. They’re now a perfect 16-0-0 when leading after two periods. Only the league-leading Colorado Avalanche (20-0-0) have been more dominant in such situations.
“That’s kind of a sign of a veteran team,” Mikey Eyssimont told NESN after Tuesday’s win. “And we were kind of a bit of a young team, and new to each other to start the season. But yeah, I mean, it’s too early to say playoffs, but that’s what a playoff team does. And we’re starting to show that we can be one.”