Great win, fun game. Excellent tempo, close to a full 60 min effort. All 4 Boston centers were dominant and did a lot to set up the win through owning the middle of the ice. The Bruins should probably have put the game to bed sooner but Markstrom was immense. Boston’s been guilty plenty of times in the recent past of making ordinary goalies look amazing, but Jacob is class and really was on and made a number of huge saves. Good on the Bs for sticking at it and finding ways to pot enough to get the job done. Didn’t hurt that Rask was also superb. Calm, collected, a well-deserved shutout.
One thing that particularly stood out to me in this one was that the Bruins’ cycle game and layers were really sharp. Hard skating and good mutual support created extended periods of O-zone time and some excellent chances. Passing could occasionally have been a little better, but can’t fault the effort or tactics. The whole team has really come out hard from the break and brought an extra edge to their game. The look like they know that the time to really knuckle down and get to work has arrived and the hunger seems to be back. Fingers crossed they keep it.
McAvoy feels like he’s about to go next level. Who cares if he doesn’t score goals? If he keeps being a defensive beast and steadily racking up even-strength assists he’ll be doing all he needs to cement himself as one of the most important, effective players on the roster. Lauzon is a keeper too. As others have noted, he just rounds out the D and gives them that bit extra size and grit. Good on Blidh too for coming in, playing hard and making a difference. He hasn’t done a lot that you could measure in numbers, but he just adds energy and desire to compete and that rubs off on the others. I don’t expect him to be in the starting lineup for the POs, but he’s a useful extra piece to have around with some extra experience under his belt.
My only concern at present is that Sweeney has been making noises about the approaching deadline that seem to have the intent of dampening expectations of who and how much the Bs will trade in before then. Perhaps it’s just a bluff, or a way of quelling speculation, but I really hope he doesn’t just mostly sit tight and trust in depth over extra talent. Sure, depth is nice to have, but you only need so much, and too much of the same thing doesn’t bring results. There are at least a couple of pieces that can viably be moved, and this team still needs something extra if it’s going to have a good chance of hanging with quality opponents and putting them away over multi-game series. Don’t be shy Donny, make the bold moves!