It seems that this new collection of Bruins players is starting to learn the lessons that Marco Sturm is trying to teach them this season.<\/p>\n
The calls for consistency have been ongoing for the Black and Gold amid a season of winning and losing streaks, and truth be told, some of the streakiness is probably inevitable based on the grueling nature of the Olympic season schedule.<\/p>\n
Some of it has been impossible to avoid, but the good teams are curbing the losing stretches and extending the winning binges, all while knowing that there\u2019s going to be the occasional blowout when a team simply doesn\u2019t have the skating legs or the indomitable will.<\/p>\n
After a humbling road loss to the Stars in Dallas, the Bruins made it a point to stop the losing streak in its tracks with a fast start that they rode to victory in a 4-3 win over the Vegas Golden Knights at TD Garden on Thursday night.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we just had the right attitude coming into the game,\u201d said Sturm. \u201cWe just didn\u2019t like the game how it went and how it turned out, so overall guys showed up today and they wanted to prove everybody that is not our game, and also we are better than that against a really good hockey team. It was a mindset [with the team] for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
The contrast was stunning as they went from a penalty-prone team giving up PP goals to the Stars to an energized hockey team doing the power play damage while scoring three goals in 58 seconds in the first period against Vegas.<\/p>\n
Charlie McAvoy and Elias Lindholm scored the PP strikes on both ends of the high-sticking double minor called on Tomas Hertl, and Tanner Jeannot added another one on the heavy forecheck that\u2019s oftentimes missing when the B\u2019s are struggling.<\/p>\n
The Bruins’ veteran leaders admitted afterward that the pointed pregame discussion ahead of the Golden Knights game was stopping the losing dead in its tracks after one game, as that is what the NHL\u2019s best teams do on a regular basis.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the end of the day we saw it through and got the two points, and that\u2019s all that matters,\u201d said McAvoy. \u201cWe talked about it before the game that this game was huge. This was a really important game. Everybody knows that our team has been a little bit up and down this season, and about the importance of this game and not creating a losing streak that we need to dig out of.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe came out strong, special teams were great and it\u2019s really important to capitalize on home ice where we\u2019ve been really good and the fans have been great. We\u2019ve done a good job all year protecting leads and closing things out and seeing it through. But you end up with a little bit of a sour taste [based on the way things ended] that we kind of limped to the finish line. We\u2019d like to dictate more and see that game end 4-0, and we can play or even extend the lead doing it the right way. But we got two points and that\u2019s exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the opening 40 minutes were impressive while building a 4-0 lead, and the second period David Pastrnak\u00a0goal off a powerful Nikita Zadorov net drive and pass was vital to the final victorious result, the most impressive part was Boston holding off a clearly hard-charging Vegas team in that final period when the script was flipped.<\/p>\n
They bent while allowing three goals and getting outshot 20-5 in the final 20 minutes, but they made the winning plays at the end that they\u2019ll need to keep doing to win games down the stretch, and to potentially be prepared for the Stanley Cup playoff battles awaiting them in the future.<\/p>\n
McAvoy blocked a shot with the instep of his foot in the closing seconds and then remained on the ice after a Vegas timeout to make sure things were closed out in regulation, a nice, gritty hockey play at the end of another strong game where he opened up the scoring by shooting the puck in the first period.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It seems that this new collection of Bruins players is starting to learn the lessons that Marco Sturm…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":424023,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5099],"tags":[154,95,5132,530,5,4,46049,46050],"class_list":{"0":"post-424022","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-hockey","13":"tag-nhl","14":"tag-top-bruins","15":"tag-top-story-2"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424022","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=424022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424022\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/424023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=424022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=424022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=424022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}