The Bruins have won five in a row, seven of their last eight and pushed their way back into the Eastern Conference playoff bracket. But one nagging question remains.<\/p>\n
Can we trust this?<\/p>\n
While many teams have have had bouts of streakiness, as coach Marco Sturm pointed out earlier this week, the Bruins have been the poster children for that trait. In 48 games, the B\u2019s have had two six-game losing streak (0-6, 0-4-2) sandwiched around a seven-game win streak. They\u2019ve won a handful straight again and re-established their home mojo after a pre-Christmas 1-3-1 homestand that knocked then off course.<\/p>\n
Now they have to take the show on the road, where they\u2019ve been perfectly mediocre (10-11-1). They play in Chicago on Saturday and have a tough one in Dallas on Tuesday. It\u2019s reasonable to have conserably less confidence in this team when it wanders away from Causeway Street.<\/p>\n
But there have been some promising signs in the last couple of weeks. Here are a few:<\/p>\n
*Charlie McAvoy has been playing his best hockey of the season and perhaps of his career recently. In the five-game homestand, he was plus-9 with 1-5-6 totals.<\/p>\n
He was especially impactful in the B\u2019s 4-2 win over Seattle. On a night when not many Bruins had their A game and they lost Andrew Peeke early, McAvoy was a force. He played 28:00, notched a pair of assists and was plus-3. When the game was on the line late in the 6-on-5 situation and the Kraken threatening to tie it, he skated the puck out of danger and drew a penalty.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s playing outstanding,\u201d said Sturm after Thursday\u2019s win. \u201cEven off the ice I feel like he\u2019s growing as a leader, too. Does a lot of the right things. Takes care of himself. He\u2019s in a good spot right now. You guys saw him more than I did in the past. I don\u2019t know how good he was here, but I was always a big fan of him. But, you\u2019re right, right now he\u2019s definitely playing the best hockey I\u2019ve seen from him.\u201d<\/p>\n
*Marat Khusnutdinov is looking like a legitimate top-six forward. He\u2019s not going to have many four-goal games like he did against the Rangers but you can see how good he\u2019s feeling about his game. His 10-11-21 totals in 43 games is already more than what the 2020 37th overall pick produced in 91 games over three years with Minnesota. His speed really showed up in Thursday when, in the first minute of the game, he gathered a McAvoy feed on the fly, burned past a Seattle defender and tucked home a goal.<\/p>\n
His best trait may be his ability to hunt pucks for his linemates, especially when he\u2019s playing with David Pastrnak. He\u2019s small but deceptively strong on pucks and he seems amenable to doing the less glamorous work. But he\u2019s got skills, too.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can see it now,\u201d said Sturm. \u201cHe\u2019s holding on to pucks. He\u2019s not looking for David all the time. But that just shows me he\u2019s confident and that\u2019s what we want him to be. He\u2019s been outstanding all season long. We kind of know where he is right now on the time, he\u2019s killing for me, playing on a top and now he\u2019s scoring a few goals, too.\u201d<\/p>\n
*And from the bad news\/good news department: Morgan Geekie remains colder than a Manitoba winter, his goal-less streak now at 11 with just three assists in that time. Still the B\u2019s leading goal scorer with 25 on the season, Geekie appears to be lacking the same confidence in his bullet of a shot he had earlier this season. So where\u2019s the good news in all this? The B\u2019s have been able to win without Geekie\u2019s output. And he had been too hot for too long, dating back to the second half of last season, to think he can\u2019t pull out of this.<\/p>\n
Viel traded<\/p>\n
The Bruins made a minor trade on Friday, dishing reserve forward Jeffrey Viel to the Anaheim Ducks for the earlier of the Ducks\u2019 two 2026 fourth-round picks that Anaheim had previously obtained from Detroit and Philadelphia.<\/p>\n
The 28-year-old Viel was a nice story in October as the journeyman tough guy made the opening night roster. He had a very good camp and could well have been claimed on waivers if exposed. But more than that, Viel making the team seemed be a statement from management that it was serious about this team being harder to play against.<\/p>\n
That point, apparently, has been sufficiently made and Viel became a luxury the club could no longer afford on its roster. With the Peeke lower body injury from Thursday night, the B\u2019s needed a roster spot, which they filled by calling up defenseman Billy Sweezey from Providence on an emergency basis.<\/p>\n
Viel had not played since Dec. 20 and that was only game he had played since Nov. 29. He had also suffered a concussion on Nov. 19 against the same Ducks team he\u2019s now a part of when, in a fight with Radko Gudas, he hit his head on the ice.<\/p>\n
With the pick acquisition, the B\u2019s hold nine selections in the upcoming draft, including two first-rounders and three fourths.<\/p>\n
Andersson on radar?<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the B\u2019s continue to be linked to Calgary defenseman Rasmus Andersson. The 29-year-old right-shot D is on an expiring contract that is paying him $4.55 million. As Sportsnet\u2019s Elliotte Friedman alluded to on his 32 Thoughts podcast on Friday, it\u2019s hard to imagine the B\u2019s acquiring Andersson without having an extension in place. The B\u2019s competitiveness has been heartening, but they have no business being in the rental market based on where they are in their rebuild\/retool.<\/p>\n
What would it cost? It would not be a shock if Mason Lohrei, uneven defensively but still possessing skills that could run a power play, was involved. The Flames no doubt would want a first-round pick. With this upcoming draft considered to be a strong one, it would behoove the B\u2019s to hang on to both their first-round picks. But they\u2019ve also got two firsts next season and one of them should be expendable. Perhaps Fabian Lysell \u2014 11-18-29 in 30 games in Providence but doesn\u2019t seem to be in the B\u2019s plans \u2013 could sweeten the pot. We\u2019ll see.<\/p>\n
But a top-four of Nikita Zadorov-McAvoy and Hampus Lindholm-Andersson, along with a bottom pairing of Jonathan Aspirot and Peeke, would be a solid six-pack of defensemen down the stretch. \u2026\u00a0By the way, the B\u2019s are 21-6-1 with Aspirot in the lineup. Hard to think that success is a coincidence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Bruins have won five in a row, seven of their last eight and pushed their way back…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":341166,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5099],"tags":[154,95,5132,530,2154,5,40,4,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-411504","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boston-bruins","8":"tag-boston","9":"tag-boston-bruins","10":"tag-bostonbruins","11":"tag-bruins","12":"tag-charlie-mcavoy","13":"tag-hockey","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-nhl","16":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115906908223012620","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=411504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411504\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/341166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=411504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=411504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=411504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}