Bruins once again rise to the challenge

The Bruins improved their record to 18-5-7 against NHL teams currently in the Stanley Cup playoff structure with a resounding, emphatic 4-1 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs at Scotiabank Arena. It was a game that was really never in doubt as the Bruins stormed right out of the starting track and responded with a Herculean push in the third period after the Leafs scored a goal while taking their run at Boston.

The Jekyll/Hyde nature of the Bruins this season can be a little difficult to grasp, but the bottom line is that the Bruins are a good hockey team when they bring their top-drawer game. Anything less and they can be beaten by, well, anybody as they have proven over the fits and starts of the last month.

“It was our identity and that was really special to see. The way guys responded and played the right way for the crest was super special to see,” said Jeremy Swayman of the complete win after making 32 saves. “Obviously we get results when we do that.”

Boston’s best players responded with statement games pretty much across the board and the slow starts, sloppy and mistake-prone defense and lack of secondary scoring all disappeared for one of the first times since the NHL All-Star break. For a team struggling to tread water over the last month, it was a reminder the Bruins have good, prideful players who won’t be easy outs in the postseason.

More importantly, the Bruins got off to a good start with three goals in the first period while outshooting the Leafs 13-10 and closed strongly after John Tavares got Toronto on the board in the third. It was a reminder to the Maple Leafs that the Bruins have traditionally owned them in the postseason as the two longtime Atlantic Division rivals appear on a collision course again this spring.

“I wouldn’t say that, but for every divisional opponent you are for sure giving it a little bit more focus,” said David Pastrnak , who finished with three assists in a stellar performance that saw him reach 90 points for the second consecutive season. “Those are big points, they are especially like four [points] when they are in the division. So you give those games more focus, but the playoffs is still 20 or more games away. So you don’t look that far [ahead].”

Pastrnak wasn’t alone in rising to the occasion, of course, as Pavel Zacha had one of his best games of the season chipping in a pair of goals around the net, and Jake DeBrusk finished with a goal, a multi-point game and five shot attempts to go along with might be a personal NHL-best of four registered hits in the game.

It was very clear the Bruins were on point in the first period when they scored twice in the three-minute span in the middle of the period, and then punctuated it with a crisp, perfectly executed three-man rush that turned into a goal. Charlie Coyle took the puck wide on a give-and-go, Brad Marchand drove to the net attracting the defenders and then DeBrusk went bar down on a perfect dish from Coyle.

It was a sign of a focused, determined hockey team and served as a clear reminder the Bruins haven’t been bringing their “A” game much over the last month while teams like Seattle, Calgary and the Islanders have beaten them with hungrier, desperate efforts. That doesn’t mean the Bruins don’t have significant weaknesses to address at the NHL trade deadline – because they do – but it does mean that their middling 5-4-5 record since the NHL All-Star break isn’t indicative of who exactly they are come postseason-time.

“It’s definitely frustrating when you are in that situation and you are trying to find solutions,” said Pastrnak. “It can eat you alive sometimes when you are looking at it the wrong way or just overthinking it. It’s definitely not fun. I’ve been here a few years now, though, and you come to expect that you are going to go through this a few times a year except for last year in the regular season.

“You just have to find a way to refocus and find a way to get back on the right winning column and the right way to play. We focused a lot on the details and a lot of what happened [against the Islanders] was self-inflicted. That’s the positive part of it. Yes, it was a horrible game against the Islanders, but a lot of it we did it to ourselves. We take the positive out of [the Isles loss], we learn, and we have to make it a motivation to get better as a team and as a group.”

Even if Boston’s recent level of play was perhaps even more grotesque than the overall record when you look at the uninspired way the team was playing at both ends of the ice, and on special teams as well.

Perhaps the most important thing, though, was the bounce-back from an embarrassing 5-1 road loss to the Islanders last weekend. A good hockey team was going to respond to that hot mess with a full-throated effort and begin to circle the wagons with just about a month to go until the Stanley Cup playoffs, and just a few more days until Bruins management make big decisions at the trade deadline.

Will they significantly alter the DNA of a team that’s been in first place in their division for nearly all of the last two hockey seasons, or will it be adding some needed muscle and physicality ahead of the postseason grind?

Perhaps there is a hockey trade in the works as DeBrusk has just a few more months until free agency with a significant gap in contract extension talks, or there will be some fire behind all the smoke of Linus Ullmark trade chatter.

That turned comical on Monday night as Jack Edwards set everybody into a panic when he noted on the NESN broadcast that Ullmark wasn’t on the Bruins bench, only to find out he was in the hallway rather getting crowded at the end of the visiting bench in Toronto. The Boston Bruins social media team, of course, had some fun with that.

But it’s the funny time of the NHL regular season where an epic win or a putrid loss can set everybody into a tailspin of speculation, and even the most experienced prognosticators can lose sight of perspective amidst the long 82-game gauntlet.