Boston Bruins: From Worst To First?
The Boston Bruins seemed to have turned the corner this season. After a rough 7-7-1 start to the season, the Bruins have come alive in their last fifteen games. The B’s are 11-1-3 as of late, and those 25 points have propelled them from out of playoff contention to second in the Atlantic and fifth in the Eastern Conference.
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There have been a lot of recent improvements for the Black and Gold. The Bruins blueline, while still not optimal has learned on the fly and gotten better. Goaltending has certainly improved as of late as Tuukka Rask and Jonas Gustavsson have become a reliable tandem in net for Boston. The penalty kill has skyrocketed from the worst in the league to 16th (Bruins have killed 94% of opponent’s power plays in that last fifteen games.), a nearly miraculously feat. The Bruins credit their recent success to going back to the fundamentals and relying on each other to win.
“Obviously we had a rough start there with a few losses, but, like I said, everyone is just believing in what we’re doing and sticking to the game plan and the system. [We’re] not doing too much, and not doing too little,” said Bruins goaltender Jonas Gustavsson. His 29 saves secured a shootout win for the B’s last night against the New Jersey Devils. “Everyone is counting on each other, and I think that’s the key. When we’re playing the way we’re supposed to play, we have a pretty good chance to come out on top every night. I’m not surprised at where we are, but the season is still young and there are a lot of things that could happen. But so far so good.”
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All across the team, spirits have risen. Now, the Bruins have an opportunity to claim first place in the division with a win over the St. Louis Blues tomorrow night.
“Ten games into the season you wouldn’t expect that this many games later we would be right back there,” said David Krejci on the B’s recent meteoric rise in the standings. “So it’s obviously nice, but anything can happen. There are still 50 games left so you have to take it game by game, and we’ll see what happens.
“Obviously we got a new GM, we got some new faces, so [we’re] kind of getting used to the system, and getting used to each other. You have to create chemistry off the ice and then kind of click on the ice as well. It takes some time. After those [first] ten games, I thought we were rolling pretty good. We were winning games, even if we lost a game it was in overtime, or we lost by one goal. I thought we have something good going but we have to keep it up.”
The Bruins have done a fantastic job as of late. Now they’ve just got one more little hurdle before the get to the top of the Atlantic. The Habs. Passing the Montreal Canadiens just before the Winter Classic would be an enormous psychological win for the team and the fan base. (Taking first from them at the Winter Classic might even be better.) It would certainly validate many of the choices made by Don Sweeney and reaffirm the fans confidence in Claude Julien.