Just as in any other pro sports league, talent does matter in the National Hockey League. But in hockey, talent may be what takes you over the top to a championship, but you are never getting there without the right attitude and approach to the game.<\/p>\n
And you don\u2019t get to where you want to go by always playing for the next big draft pick.<\/p>\n
When the Bruins\u2019 season started, a healthy section of the fandom was plotting for what the team would sell off at the trade deadline. They were already counting all the future assets the team could acquire for Pavel Zacha, Casey Mittelstadt and Viktor Arvidsson. Actually winning hockey games didn\u2019t enter the equation.<\/p>\n
But much to the draftniks\u2019 surprise \u2013 and chagrin \u2014 the B\u2019s have won plenty of hockey games, enough to accrue the eighth most points in the NHL as of Wednesday morning and put them firmly in the driver\u2019s seat for a playoff spot.<\/p>\n
This is a good thing, even if the B\u2019s are a one-and-done when the postseason rolls around.<\/p>\n
Think back to 2008. The B\u2019s had missed the playoffs for two straight years and were still very much in the rebuilding stage of their franchise under new coach Claude Julien. They clinched a playoff spot late in the season and then faced a heavily favored Montreal team. And, yes, that team was a one-and-done. But the B\u2019s threw such a scare into that Canadiens team that the Montreal fans rioted in relief after the Habs finally prevailed in Game 7. It was also the start of something big for the B\u2019s.<\/p>\n
While players from that team never made it to the Stanley Cup season of 2011 \u2013 including current coach Marco Sturm \u2014 that 2007-08 season was an important building block in what would become a championship team three years later.<\/p>\n
Yes, teams do need to take a step back every now and then to accrue younger talent, just as the B\u2019s did last season when they traded away a handful of regulars, including captain Brad Marchand. They did their dirty work. They\u2019ve got young players on the way and a couple of extra first-round picks.<\/p>\n
But teams should never lose sight of the ultimate goal. That goal is winning. Accepting losing for too long in the guise of laying a foundation can create a malaise that\u2019s hard to shake. It gets in a team\u2019s bones. Good on the Bruins management for not falling into that trap.<\/p>\n
Here are a few more random Bruin thoughts:<\/p>\n
*The overall health of the B\u2019s usually has a direct correlation to whether or not they have multiple 7th Player Award candidates. And this team does have a few. There\u2019s rookie Fraser Minten, who is now centering the team\u2019s top offensive talent. And there\u2019s the reborn Arvidsson. But to this observer, the most important contribution that no one saw coming has been the one delivered by Jonathan Aspirot. A 26-year-old defenseman who had never sniffed the NHL until last Oct. 28, Aspirot has been a perfect fit for Sturm\u2019s hybrid man\/zone defensive system. He was inserted into the lineup when a lot of players were still trying to grasp it. For a team that is still in the bottom half of the league in goals against (18th, 3.07), Aspirot is a plus-30. He plays with physicality and urgency and, most importantly, his steady presence has allowed Charlie McAvoy to be his best self.<\/p>\n
*If the B\u2019s can clinch a playoff spot with a few games to go (right now they have a 98% probability of making the postseason), it will be interesting to see what the club does with James Hagens. He is on an ATO in Providence and would have to sign his NHL entry level deal if the B\u2019s want to bring him up for a game or two. If he does, Hagens would lose his eligibility for the AHL playoffs, which could be good experience for him. Maybe there\u2019s a wink-wink agreement between the management and the player\u2019s camp to get him an NHL game at some point to burn the first year of the contract, which wouldn\u2019t be unheard of for such a high pick (7th overall). He could also be called up out of necessity if the injury bug should take a bite out of this roster. To Hagens\u2019 credit, he\u2019s thus far played the good soldier, trusting the path the team has laid out for him.<\/p>\n
Interestingly, the Flyers, who are still fighting for a playoff spot, chose a different route for Porter Martone, who was taken one pick ahead of Hagens. After Martone\u2019s Penn State was knocked out of the NCAA tournament, he was immediately signed to his ELC and made his debut in the Flyers\u2019 damaging loss to Washington on Tuesday. Martone had a team-high five shots on net. The B\u2019s face the Flyers on Sunday.<\/p>\n
*I was in the \u201cRe-sign Zacha\u201d camp before he put up the best offensive season of his career and I\u2019m still there. Big (6-4, 211) centermen who can play against top lines aren\u2019t that easy to find. Maybe Dean Letourneau can be that guy some day, but it took Zacha a decade after his draft year to get here. He will get a healthy raise from his current salary of $4.75 million and maybe the final years of the deal won\u2019t be as productive. But at 28 now, he still should have a good chunk of his prime left when the current deal runs out after next season. He can sign an extension after July 1. Might as well try and secure him then.<\/p>\n
*It\u2019s hard to envision\u00a0 Elias Lindholm will be able to live up to his seven-year, $54.25 million contract. As Sturm pointed out after the B\u2019s win over Dallas, his latest resurgence (five goals in last the last six games, including the important third period go-ahead snipe against Dallas) has come after being dropped down to the third line center spot. That\u2019s not what the B\u2019s paid for. But that doesn\u2019t mean he can\u2019t be an important player for them down the stretch. Lindholm was underwhelming for Vancouver when the Canucks picked him up late in the season two years ago, but he showed up in the playoffs, notching 5-5-10 totals in 13 games.<\/p>\n
*Back in November, I viewed this season as a pass\/fail course, and making the playoffs would earn them a pass. It still does. But after watching them beat Buffalo, Minnesota, Columbus and Dallas, it\u2019s easy to envision them doing a little bit of damage in the postseason. On the upcoming trip, they face two potential first round opponents in Tampa (Saturday) and Carolina (Tuesday). For both those games, neither team will be on the second half of a back-to-back. All three teams involved should want to make statements.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Just as in any other pro sports league, talent does matter in the National Hockey League. But in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":535209,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5099],"tags":[154,95,5132,530,4512,5,373,40692,4,7610],"class_list":{"0":"post-535208","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-elias-lindholm","13":"tag-hockey","14":"tag-james-hagens","15":"tag-jonathan-aspirot","16":"tag-nhl","17":"tag-pavel-zacha"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535208","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=535208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535208\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/535209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=535208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=535208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=535208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}