TAMPA, Fla. — The good news is that the Bruins took down the Tampa Bay Lightning for the first time this season, and in doing so opened up a nine-point lead on the Bolts that’s going to be near-impossible to fritter away in the Atlantic Division.
Even more encouraging in the news development department, the Bruins were able to take home the 2-1 win over the Lightning at Amalie Arena without any help from their vaunted, high-wattage power play.
Generally, it speaks to how well they are playing in most other phases of the game right now while going 13-3-0 out of the NHL All-Star break. But it also speaks to an increasing ability for the Bruins to win games outright while playing even strength hockey, and that’s something that ultimately has tripped them up in the playoffs over the last few years.
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So while the power play flopping with an 0-for-3 performance against the Lightning isn’t anything to get pumped up about, there is a silver lining to the special teams struggle.
“The power play has been so important for us all year and it’s won us hockey games,” said Bruins defenseman Torey Krug of a B’s PP group that ranks second in the NHL with a 25.1 percent success rate this season. “Now we win a hockey game [on Tuesday] against a very good team without a goal in our three times [on the PP]. It just proves that it’s another way we can win a game and we are going to need that in the playoffs at some point. It’s definitely a step in a good direction.”
The Bruins managed just two shots on net during those three power plays and didn’t generate a single scoring chance while being handed chances to bust the game wide open.
It was this very Tampa Bay team that snuffed out the Bruins two postseasons ago when they were able to shut down the Perfection Line during 5-on-5 play. That allowed the Bolts to dispatch the Bruins in five games and expose them as a team that needed some work during even strength play.
Last June it was the Blues that did very much the same while turning Boston into a team reliant on the power play for offense, and totally shutting down Boston’s Perfection Line during 5-on-5 play.
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While special teams play does take on a significant role in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, a hockey club that’s unable to play good, solid 5-on-5 hockey against quality opponents isn’t going to fare very well when the refs put the whistles away in the postseason.
Everybody knows that’s a more common occurrence during the postseason than it is during the regular season. It most definitely happened against St. Louis last season and Boston doesn’t want history to repeat itself in this spring’s Stanley Cup Playoffs with such high hopes going into the tourney this time around. It’s part of the challenge of building a team that can excel in both the regular season and postseason, and it seems that the additions of Nick Ritchie and Ondrej Kase have helped in that category.
Kase did a nice job of creating some scoring chances for himself throughout Tuesday's game, and it was third liner DeBrusk who ended up notching the game-winner for the Bruins. It’s exactly the kind of second and third line offensive threats that the Bruins didn’t consistently have when it mattered most last postseason.
All that being said, the Bruins don’t want to see too many repeats of Tuesday night’s sloppy-looking power play that was unable to do much of anything on the ice in Tampa.
“We did that in Edmonton where we weren’t very good [on the power play] and we ended up winning the game in overtime,” said Bruce Cassidy. “We just didn’t execute well enough on it. On some of our entries. our guys were out of position and they were aggressive enough where we needed to be a little cleaner. We had a couple looks, but typically we’re able to generate more.
“I think as a coach it’s good to see that against a good team. [It’s not good] that your power play isn’t sharp, but where if it doesn’t come through, then you could still win the game.”
One would expect that the Bruins will be back to normal on special teams when the puck is dropped in Florida on Thursday night, and that the B’s will go back to their routine formula for winning games.
But the Bruins showing that they can lock down victories in different ways down the stretch isn’t a bad thing at all, even considering how dreadful their power play looked in Tampa.