One look at the standings in the Eastern Conference and one thing is for sure: the fight for the postseason is going to be wild. Very wild. Six teams, the Boston Bruins, Montreal Canadiens, Detroit Red Wings, Pittsburgh Penguins, Columbus Blue Jackets, and New York Islanders, are fighting for five playoff spots and are separated by one point. Insanity.
With either 13 or 14 games remaining for each team, the margin of error is razor-thin. One or two regulation losses can be devastating. Saturday night's Bruins/Red Wings game in Detroit is a massive one, to say the least.
Boston kept pace without the rest of the teams in the race on Thursday night with a 6-1 win over the Winnipeg Jets at the TD Garden. It was their 14th win on home ice in their last 15 games. The Black and Gold got goals from six different players, and after the game, one of them didn't beat around the bush about the heated postseason race.
Bruins defenseman Jonathan Aspirot sums up Bruins final 13 games in playoff race
Lukas Reichel scored in his first game as a Bruin after being acquired at the trade deadline from the Vancouver Canucks. Also, finding the back of the net was Jonathan Aspirot, late in the third period. After the game, he spoke about scoring, as well as what his teammates need to do over the final month of the regular season to extend their season in mid-April.
“It is always fun to score goals. I was super excited about that,” Aspirot said. “I think we’re just going game by game. Try not to think about that too much, and just do our group and what we can control. Got to win every game, and have some fun doing it.”
Having fun is part of the game, but collecting points on a nightly basis is the name of the game going forward for the Bruins. There is no sugarcoating it. There are some vital head-to-head matchups over the next couple of weeks for the Black and Gold, but those are going to be on the road. Winning away from the TD Garden is going to be a must if Boston is going to get into the playoffs. Winning and having fun is a great combination this time of the year.