As sickening as it is to say it, the haters won on Thursday night in the Boston Bruins' loss to the Montreal Canadiens. For as long as the Bruins led the Atlantic Division, everyone doubted them, saying the expected goals differential wouldn't last and that Jeremy Swayman and Michael DiPietro wouldn't bail them out every night. For the most part, Bruins fans could dismiss those criticisms as people refusing to believe in what Boston was accomplishing.
For the first time this season, Bruins fans got a glimpse of how vulnerable this team can be when its goaltenders can't cover up its defensive shortcomings. The loss to the Canadiens wasn't all the goaltenders' fault, but we can now see that when the team doesn't get those clutch stops that run up the expected goals saved numbers, it gets pretty ugly.
The organization can look at this in two ways: 1. Swayman had a rare off night, and it unfortunately came in the biggest game of the season against the team's oldest rival. And 2. The defense will have to be much better every night if they don't want to keep putting their goaltenders in a spot where they have to bail everyone out.
The bad news is that maybe the haters are right, and the Bruins need their goaltenders to be perfect if they want to have a chance to contend. The good news is that Boston's goaltenders haven't given us any reason to believe their struggles Thursday night will continue.
Jeremy Swayman's off night doesn't mean the season is over
It was a harsh reality check for the Bruins, but the result against the Canadiens isn't the end of the world. If Swayman manages a couple more saves and Boston plays the third period as they did, they'll likely get at least a point from that game. In a vacuum, the team loses in a rout to their rivals and drops to third in the Atlantic Division, but long-term there is still no need to panic.
Swayman could easily come out Saturday, have three goals saved above expected, and steal a game from the Minnesota Wild to make everyone forget Thursday's result. If you're rolling the starter out for a seven-game series, it takes four of Thursday's performances for them to get knocked out, and I don't see that happening either, given how he's played so far.
We can eat some humble pie and realize that the Bruins' game as a whole isn't good enough to beat teams like the Canadiens every night, but we also shouldn't start looking at mock drafts to see who Don Sweeney can pick in the lottery. Barring a complete collapse from both, the goaltending will be just fine. Thursday was just a reality check of what can happen when they aren't on.
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