Since firing Jim Montgomery, the Boston Bruins are 7-2-0 under interim coach Joe Sacco. That run has propelled them into third place at the moment in the Atlantic Division and a couple of points ahead of the two wild card teams in the Eastern Conference a week into December.
Say what you will about the Bruins' wins under Sacco. Yes, they have mostly beaten teams below them in the standings, but guess what? That's what good teams do and teams that want to make the Stanley Cup Playoffs in April do throughout the season. They weren't doing that under Montgomery.
After a 4-3 come-from-behind win over the Philadelphia Flyers on Saturday afternoon at the TD Garden, the Black and Gold will hit the road for a five-game road trip out west against some good teams. It's only December, but this should be considered a season-defining trip.
Bruins face five-game, season defining road trip
Five games in nine days on the road and the trip, you could say, is the toughest for the Bruins to date this season. A three-game trip back in October to Colorado, Utah, and Nashville turned out to be a bad trip, and over the next nines days, the Black and Gold can't return to the TD Garden on Dec. 21 to host the Buffalo Sabres off a "bad trip." Here are the five games,
- Tuesday: at Winnipeg Jets, 8 p.m.
- Thursday: at Seattle Kraken, 10 p.m.
- Saturday: at Vancouver Canucks, 10 p.m.
- Dec. 17: at Calgary Flames, 9 p.m.
- Dec. 19: at Edmonton Oilers, 9 p.m.
As you can see, this isn't going to be an easy trip. Winnipeg is a very good team that started off the season on fire, Seattle scored seven goals in a 7-5 win over the New York Rangers Sunday afternoon, Vancouver came to the TD Garden two weeks ago and won, 2-0, with former Bruin Jake DeBrusk scoring the game-winner. Calgary is struggling but always gives the Bruins problems and the Oilers are an explosive team.
There are 10 points at stake for Boston over nine days and they need to at least split them to make this a successful road trip. It's still early in the season, but the schedule gets difficult in January and banking points on the road will be huge for Sacco and his team. A good trip could propel them heading into Christmas or make things tougher around the holidays. This is a golden opportunity for them to show that "they are back" under Sacco.