Kalman: Bruins' Win Over Blackhawks Proved For One Night They Could Hang With The Big Dogs
BOSTON (CBS) - Faced with one of the toughest remaining schedules out of all the teams competing for a spot in the playoffs in the Eastern Conference, the Bruins finally put forth an effort worthy of a team that deserves to be in the postseason on Thursday.
The Bruins didn't fold in the face of adversity, survived an 11-2 shots on net disadvantage and played a style reminiscent of their heyday under coach Claude Julien to defeat the Western Conference-leading Chicago Blackhawks at TD Garden.
Maybe the Bruins really do have a chance to return to the postseason after missing for the first time in eight years last season.
By prevailing against one of the premier teams in the NHL, the Bruins proved that they learned their lessons from all the beatings they've taken, particularly at home, against elite teams. There was the infamous 9-2 shellacking by Los Angeles, the 6-2 loss to Anaheim, and just this past Sunday the 4-1 loss to Tampa Bay.
But against the Blackhawks, the Bruins seemed like a college kid that's done with all the partying and is ready to focus on life in the real world. The Bruins didn't hang their heads after the Blackhawks tied the score 1-1 at 14:14 of the first period. And after Boston took a 4-1 lead, it didn't collapse under flashbacks to the 2013 Stanley Cup finals when the Blackhawks began to mount a comeback by scoring to cut the lead to 4-2 at 19:10 of the second period.
In fact, the Bruins held down the fort and kept the high-potent Blackhawks offense off the board the rest of the way, even after Chicago coach Joel Quenneville pulled goaltender Scott Darling for the extra attacker with 3:30 remaining.
"I think we kind of learned kind of what we need to do," said center Ryan Spooner, whose power-play goal at 2:31 of the second period gave the Bruins a 3-1 lead. "There's a lot of new faces here and stuff like that. We just talk about when we play against the top teams in the league, we can't be too cute. You've got to get pucks in deep. The games that we lost there, I thought we had a lot of turnovers at the blue line that kind of came back the other way. I thought that tonight we did an extremely good job of that."
The Bruins rediscovered their identity. Their goals weren't the product of beautiful plays. Patrice Bergeron battled down low and then came out from behind the net to score the first goal of the game. Brad Marchand fired away from the top of the left circle to give Boston a 2-1 lead. Newcomer John-Michael Liles made a sweet pass to the front for Loui Eriksson's goal, but the keys to that score were Eriksson's net drive and David Krejci's grit in blocking a shot and then clearing the puck out of the defensive zone.
With Krejci's line putting the clamps on Chicago center Jonathan Toews' line most of the night, Bergeron's line was able to stifle NHL leading-scorer Patrick Kane, who had two shots on net. It was an old-school Bruins defensive performance for the coach Claude Julien era, right down to Tuukka Rask's 25 saves.
"They are a team that really gets some pretty good speed through the neutral zone and usually that's where they do a lot of damage, so we did a great job of minimizing that," Julien said. "I thought our forecheck and our checking game, whether it was forechecking and getting on them quick or coming back quickly and taking away their time and space, I thought our checking game was probably one of the best so far."
The Bruins hinted at their ability to hang with the big dogs of the NHL on Feb. 20 in Dallas. But in that 7-3 win they fell into a 3-1 hole and didn't play a full 60 minutes. The Stars are inexperienced and defensively challenged. It took a great Bruins performance to mount the comeback, but that didn't do anything to erase the memories of past horrors, especially when one week later the Bruins were blasted out of their own building by the Lightning.
All of this could have been a one-night wonder. The Washington Capitals, the only team ahead of Chicago in the overall standings, could enter the Garden, blow the doors off the Bruins and again expose the Bruins as pretenders who are only in the race because of the mediocrity of the conference. Liles' smooth skating and decent decision-making could turn into giveaways and odd-man chances. The Capitals' firepower could overpower both the Bergeron and Krejci lines.
A long playoff run is still nothing more than a dream for the Bruins. But postseason experience could be valuable for Spooner, David Pastrnak and other Bruins that haven't tasted the playoffs yet. It would be beneficial to get more than four or five games experience in the postseason. If the Bruins can duplicate their Chicago effort a few more times down the stretch, they'll punch their ticket to the playoffs. And then maybe they'll be able to be competitive regardless of the matchup.
Matt Kalman covers the Bruins for CBSBoston.com and also contributes to NHL.com and several other media outlets. Follow him on Twitter @TheBruinsBlog.
