The Boston Bruins were without two important pieces when they took the ice against the Tampa Bay Lightning Friday in an important Atlantic Division matchup, but the team came through with one of the biggest wins of the season.
With David Pastrnak and Hampus Lindholm sidelined with injuries, Linus Ullmark played what was probably his finest game as a Bruin, making 28 saves in a 2-1 overtime victory. It wasn’t the quantity of stops that was so instrumental, but the quality, as the veteran was tested throughout the game, but denied Tampa at the right times to preserve his 23rd win. Right wing Jake DeBrusk also came through with one of his best showings of the year, scoring his 22nd goal early in the second period, assisting on Charlie Coyle’s overtime game-winner, and making his presence felt with outstanding two-way play and some forced turnovers.
The win moved the B’s into sole possession of third place in the division, dropping Tampa to fourth. More importantly, it reinforced the team’s veteran poise, strong culture and demonstrated an ability to win tight games when missing top components in a formula that has racked up 45 wins this season. Head coach Bruce Cassidy and his staff have been able to keep the team focused and prepared, but what are some of the other key factors to Boston’s consistency and success?
Contributions from all lines
In recent years, Boston’s Achilles heel has been an imbalance in the forward makeup. The team relied too much on one or two lines, especially the Patrice Bergeron-Brad Marchand-Pastrnak trio. While the reliance on what was considered by many to be one of the NHL’s best lines helped keep the Bruins near the top of the standings each season since 2017, the lack of depth came back to hurt them in the postseason.
General manager Don Sweeney addressed the lack of scoring balance in 2019, when he made trade deadline moves to bring in Coyle and Marcus Johansson. That B’s club rode the playoff wave all the way to the Stanley Cup final, ultimately losing a chance at the club’s second championship in a decade at the hands of the St. Louis Blues. The East Weymouth, Mass., native signed on to play for his childhood favorite team, but unrestricted free agent Johansson moved on.
Since 2019, Sweeney had tried unsuccessfully to build a forward lineup that would provide consistent contributions from the first line all the way down to the fourth.
Until now.
David Krejci’s departure last summer, opting to return home to the Czech Republic rather than sign on to stay in Boston for a 16th season, put the Bruins in jeopardy. Sweeney did what he could, signing a couple of unrestricted free agents in Erik Haula and Tomas Nosek to address the exits of Krejci and Sean Kuraly.
Sweeney also signed veteran glue winger Nick Foligno. While his offensive numbers have been far below what was hoped for from a near-$4 million per year cap hit, Foligno’s contribution to the Bruins culture and the depth he provides is invaluable. Even if some fans will never get on board with the $3.8M annual hit for this year and next, the reality is — Foligno has been the right kind of cog to build a winning team in Boston. He has been willing to play on any line, including his relegation to the fourth unit as the B’s have heated up.
Coyle is enjoying his best individual season since a 56-point campaign with the Minnesota Wild in 2016-17. He made the winning play in Tampa by grabbing a bouncing puck behind the net, backing out in front and wiring a shot home. His value isn’t about the pure production, but in the strength he gives the third line with his two-way play, effort and experience.
However, it turns out that the answer to round out the right side of Boston’s lineup after Sweeney acquired and extended Taylor Hall a year ago was already in-house. In December, it looked like DeBrusk leaving the Bruins was fait accompli. His production was down for a third consecutive year and his agent made public the 2015 first-rounder’s desire for a trade. We spent a lot of time speculating on where DeBrusk might go ever since, including at the trade deadline, when he was linked to the Anaheim Ducks in an expanded trade that could have brought veteran Rickard Rakell to Boston. It did not come to pass, and it turns out that Sweeney’s refusal to accept a lesser return on the 25-year-old’s services might have been the most important decision the GM made.
DeBrusk is playing like a first-rounder, and along with Haula has given the second line a boost in energy and production integral during his team’s recent 17-3 run. He may yet be traded in the offseason after agreeing to a two-year extension to lock him in at a bargain rate of $4 million each season, but if the Bruins can convince him that this is home, his best hockey appears to be on the horizon. It would be a shame to see him scoring 30, possibly 40 goals wearing another team’s colors, but those milestones are certainly plausible after watching him blossom in the past couple of months.
Goaltending making a difference
We previously talked about the makeup of the new-look Boston defense, and with Lindholm out, the B’s coaches have to spend more time on matchup pairings. Although they lost to an inferior team in Detroit last week, the Boston defense bounced back in Tampa and did a good job of limiting the Lightning’s shot attempts and not allowing them to pepper Ullmark with volume chances.
It looks like Lindholm is not expected out for a long period of time, so the B’s should be able to keep their defense stable through their final road game of the weekend in Washington before returning home to TD Garden.
Ullmark was on top of his game Friday, making a critical breakaway stop on the highly skilled Brayden Point, and holding the fort with timely stops when Tampa held the advantage in extended zone possession time at various stages of the contest.
It took him time to adjust after coming to Boston from Buffalo, and some were quick to write him off when he struggled early in the season. But he’s now showing how valuable he is to the team’s makeup. With the way Tuukka Rask’s comeback ended, Sweeney’s strategy to sign a young veteran as a hedge is paying off handsomely. He plays big in the net (and with his 6-foot-4 frame, he is big), but tracking pucks well and opening up to make more athletic saves at key moments. The most important statistic for a goaltender is not goals against average or save percentage. It is wins, and he leads the team in that category.
Ullmark and Jeremy Swayman have formed a top tandem, and the great thing about the two is how well they get along, respect each other and cheer one another on. When one is off, the other has been there to carry the mail. From a coaching perspective, you can’t be happier than that.
To wrap it all up, the Bruins are successful because the team is getting positive contributions from the entire roster. Will it be enough to go on an extended spring playoff run? A lot more goes into it than simply looking at the team on paper, and every postseason team needs an element of luck to stay healthy and get the bounces to advance, but the Bruins are as good as anyone as we approach the final stretch of regular-season games.
Final buzzer
The Bruins signed undrafted free agent Ohio State forward Georgi Merkulov to a deal on Saturday, as Ryan Kennedy of the Hockey News reported was close on Friday.
The 21-year-old brings a shooter’s mentality, with slick hands and pure offensive instincts to create offense in any situation. He scored 20 goals as a freshman this season for the Buckeyes. He carried the offensive load on a bad Youngstown Phantoms USHL team in 2020-21, but the year before, had some chemistry on that club with Bruins prospect Trevor Kuntar (now at Boston College).
Once again, in the absence of volume draft choices and early ones, Sweeney and Co. appear to have found a player who slipped through the cracks. Adding him to Marc McLaughlin, Mike Callahan on defense and Brandon Bussi in net, the Bruins have done a stand-up job of improving their organizational depth through the college ranks in less than a month’s time.
