The Boston Bruins had a lot to fix after Tuesday’s opening night loss to the Florida Panthers. Pretty much everything, in fact. In Thursday’s 6-4 win over the Montreal Canadiens, they fixed a lot – but certainly not all – of their issues.
The biggest improvements came offensively. After not doing so on Tuesday, the Bruins showed what kind of identity they want to have on offense. They forechecked hard. They won races and battles. They threw pucks and bodies to the front of the net. Their power play was much quicker and crisper with its puck movement. And they scored one greasy goal after another.
“I thought we won a lot more battles in all three zones,” Bruins coach Jim Montgomery said. “And playing faster along with … that heaviness is, I think we can see what kind of team we can be.”
The Bruins appeared to take a 1-0 lead just two minutes into the game on the power play. After some good but unrewarded movement from the top unit, the second unit stepped onto the ice and Hampus Lindholm stepped into a slap shot that beat Cayden Primeau as Justin Brazeau was flashing across the front of the net with a screen. Unfortunately for the Bruins, Brazeau made contact with Primeau in the process, and the goal was taken off the board after a Montreal challenge.
The Bruins would score one that counted just six seconds into their next power play. After Elias Lindholm won the draw, Charlie McAvoy walked the blue line and fired a shot past Primeau through a double screen from Lindholm and Pavel Zacha. Quick movement. A shot-first mentality. Traffic at the net. Largely absent on Tuesday, but present on both the McAvoy goal and Hampus Lindholm non-goal Thursday.
“That was awesome,” Montgomery said. “To see Charlie take as many shots as he did tonight, that gets you excited. And Lindholm, unfortunately his goal didn't count, but that started us off in that shooting mentality.”
After a quiet debut, Elias Lindholm and new linemates Zacha and David Pastrnak were dominant in this one. Lindholm scored his first goal as a Bruin late in the first period when he found open space in the slot and redirected a shot from fellow new Bruin Nikita Zadorov. Boston’s new first line struck again in the second period, with Zacha playing keepaway down low before saucing a pass to Pastrnak in the slot for the finish and a 4-1 lead.
“They were good,” Montgomery said of his top line. “They were good on the power play. They were good five-on-five. I thought Lindholm, we saw, I think he's starting to get more juice in his legs, and we saw him win a lot more battles. Like I think the underappreciated part of his game is the little things like winning battles and things he does to give his teammates time and space. And in the bumper, you can tell he's got great poise and understanding, his spatial awareness on the power play from the bumper.”
As good as that line was, it might not have even been the Bruins’ best. That’s because the fourth line of Johnny Beecher, Mark Kastelic and Cole Koepke scored three goals of their own while also helping to set the tone physically. A minute after the Canadiens took a 2-1 lead in the first, that trio responded with a dominant shift and a tying goal. Koepke took the puck hard to the net first. Then they kept the play alive before Kastelic wheeled into the slot and ripped a shot high glove for his first goal as a Bruin.
In the second period, Koepke became the third new Bruin to score his first in the spoked-B. He made a pass that sent Beecher into the zone with speed, then followed up the play and buried the rebound. After the Canadiens cut Boston’s lead to 5-4 with 4:17 left in the game, it was once again the fourth line that answered just 17 seconds later. Koepke took a hit to move the puck into the offensive zone before Kastelic fired a pass across the front for Beecher that deflected off a Canadien and in for his second goal.
“It was huge,” Montgomery said of his fourth line’s play. “Kastelic scored 45 or 48 goals in junior hockey, so it's something that he can do. And it was just nice to see how hard they went to the net. Like the Koepke goal, that's Johnny Beecher taking it hard to the net. And Kastelic’s first goal, Koepke originally took the puck hard to the net, which created that offensive zone time. So, it's something that we feel that with the speed and the size of our team, that we want to do more of. It's not easy to do, but that was a good sign.”
Offensively, this was how the Bruins want to play. Pucks and bodies to the net all night long. Defensively, Thursday night still left a lot to be desired. The Bruins didn’t give up a ton of shots (24 for the night), but the net-front breakdowns that plagued them against Florida were still present, making Jeremy Swayman’s season debut much more difficult than it should have been.
On the Canadiens’ first power play of the game, Joel Armia found Brendan Gallagher for a backdoor tap-in as Brandon Carlo could neither tie up Gallagher’s stick nor break up the pass as it went right through his legs. Later in the first period, Cole Caufield got open for another backdoor tap-in as Morgan Geekie lost him in coverage.
After a dominant second period, the Bruins led 5-2 heading to the third and had seemingly put the game out of reach. But then they took their foot off the gas, had a couple more defensive-zone breakdowns, and nearly let the Canadiens come all the way back before Kastelic slammed the door.
Montreal’s third goal came off an offensive-zone faceoff win. Trent Frederic lost the draw, Riley Tufte couldn’t get out to the point in time, and no one covered Josh Anderson in the slot as he tipped in Kaiden Guhle’s shot. On the Habs’ fourth goal, the Bruins got caught scrambling in their own end and a stickless Zadorov was unable to cover Gallagher in front as he buried his second goal of the game.
“We’ve got to clean things up,” Montgomery said. “I mean, we gave up two faceoff goals. We had four icings tonight that I didn't like, five with the last one. Two ended up causing goals, and two ended up with them going on the power play. So, that's the part of the game management that we need to be better at. Jeremy Swayman was good. He made the saves that he could. Again, there's backdoor tap-ins, because our coverage isn't solid yet.”
A win’s a win, and this was a needed bounce-back for the Bruins after a rough opening night. They can and should feel good about the offensive improvement. The next step has to be cleaning up the defense, though. That is supposed to be a strength of this team, and it’s been anything but through two games.
