Bruins must keep up the pace
Every player and team in the NHL, plus hundreds more wannabes laboring in lesser leagues in North America and Europe, have the ability to be highly successful in any given game.
We are talking about the best hockey league in the world, and even the least talented teams and individuals are still very good at playing this game.
But at the highest level, it isn’t merely about topnotch skill sets. It’s about exhibiting that skill on a consistent basis, night after night, game after game through the exhausting grind of an 82-game season.
Which brings us to this year’s immensely pleasing Bruins, who have far exceeded expectations by playing, at least over the last eight weeks, a great brand of three-zone hockey.
During their current redhot streak — a 17-3-3 mark in their last 23 outings, jumping them into a very advantageous playoff position — the Bruins have performed with tremendous consistency.
The team’s identity has been clearly defined: A north-south team that tends to keep the game fairly simple, get pucks deep and forecheck very effectively. The forecheck is followed by hard work on the backcheck, allowing the defensemen to play with a tight gap. And then the puck retrievals and breakouts have been strong and fast.
Big picture: The Bruins’ chief goal was to be a hard team to play against, and they have achieved that.
“I like the way that we’ve developed,” Bruins center Patrice Bergeron said last weekend. “As a team we got better. We faced some adversity early on and I think that got us stronger mentally, meaning that it doesn’t matter who’s in the lineup, we find a way. We can be better. We can still learn. Our younger guys are developing nicely.
“For us, as leaders and older guys, we’ve got to make sure we do a good job so we become a team that works hard, is professional and shows up to work hard every night. There have been a lot of positives. And also a lot of things to learn from, as well.”
Unlike some teams of recent vintage, they have not relied heavily on one line to deliver the key offensive production, although the No. 1 trio of Bergeron, Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak has been outstanding, certainly one of the top lines in the league.
But the Bruins have been on fire because of far more than one all-star line. The team has gotten contributions from all four lines, plus substantial offensive contributions from the blue line.
And they’ve gotten some of the finest goaltending in the NHL from Tuukka Rask and Anton Khudobin.
“We’ve shown that we can compete every night and be a good team and we’re consistent,” said Rask. “We need to continue to do it after the break. We can’t take it for granted what we’ve done; we’ve got to keep this going.
“Now we’re going to rest for a couple of days and get right back at it. The schedule is going to pick up very crazy after the break, so we have to be ready for that.”
The B’s have a great motivator for their first game back, facing Claude Julien and the Canadiens tomorrow night in Montreal. In this wacky NHL schedule, the ancient rivals play again Wednesday in Boston and a week from tomorrow back in Montreal. The Canadiens are out of a playoff position now, and the B’s can sink them considerably deeper.
The Canadiens have also been on their bye week, so there’s no advantage either way. The Bruins will reunite in Montreal today and get in one practice before the game.
“It feels like a playoff series, I guess, because you play three times in a week,” said Rask. “They’re important games. They’re big points; they’re behind us in the standings. Coming out of the break we really want to keep this thing going and keep getting a lot of points.”
If they can knock out the Canadiens along the way, all the better.