Even though the Boston Bruins are just past the midway point of the 2025-26 season, they kicked off a pivotal five-game homestand against the Calgary Flames. Head coach Marco Sturm was hoping that his team could begin a key stretch that would have a big effect on their postseason hopes.
Needing to string consecutive points together quickly, the Bruins kicked off the homestand with a revenge win over the Flames, who beat the Black and Gold, 2-1, in overtime 10 days ago in Western Canada. Here are three takeaways from a much-needed Boston win at the TD Garden.
Bruins score first again, but build on the lead
For the fifth time in six games, the Bruins opened the scoring when Sean Kuraly scored at 9:48 of the first period. As we know, scoring the first goal hasn't always been something they have been able to build on. Against the Flames, they did.
Elias Lindholm scored late in the first period for a 2-0 lead, and then Boston added two more goals in the second period for a 4-0 lead with strikes from Mason Lohrei and Casey Mittlestadt. However, if there was a downside after Mittlstadt scored to make it 4-0, they allowed a Calgary goal late in the second. The Bruins never make things easy for themselves.
Joonas Korpisalo have a night
After sitting and watching the last four games, Joonas Korpisalo got the start between the pipes for the Black and Gold. The last time he played was on Dec. 27 in a 4-1 loss to the Buffalo Sabres in Western New York. He allowed three second-period goals that turned a 1-0 Bruins lead into a loss.
When he hasn't played for long stretches, he's struggled this year. That was not the case against the Flames. He made 28 saves, incuding some very big ones in the second period when the game was still close at 2-0. He had big saves on Matthew Coronato and Mikael Backlund. It was a performance that Korpisalo needed.
Professional response
After a frustrating 7-4 loss to the Seattle Kraken to close out the road trip on Tuesday night, Sturm didn't beat around the bush about his team's performance when talking to Andy Brickley on the NESN postgame show.
"We were very immature, I can tell you that," Sturm said. "That's what happened today. They didn't do anything. They went back in their zone, they stopped, they went up and down the ice, and we made the mistakes. And of course, penalties hurt us again, all of them. And now all of a sudden, you give up two points here we definitely should have grabbed today, and that's the most frustrating and disappointing part of it."
There were a few people you could say he was talking about. However, the cross-country flight was a good thing for his club to think about those comments. Against Calgary, in what is a dangerous game coming off a long trip, his team played a professional game to pick up a big victory.