BOSTON — As February opened, Joe Sacco issued a challenge to the Boston Bruins. The Bruins had four games before the pause for the 4 Nations Face-Off. The interim coach wanted his players to face the segment like a playoff series.
Halfway through, the Bruins have pocketed four points.
“Really good all-around effort from our guys tonight, start to finish,” Sacco said following Tuesday’s 3-0 blanking of the Minnesota Wild. “Maybe the first six, seven, eight minutes, not quite the start we wanted. But it was a good showing by our guys. They played determined hockey tonight.”
For any playoff series, real or otherwise, teams need an ace in goal. After a 22-save performance in the Bruins’ 6-3 win over the New York Rangers in Game 1 of this stretch, Jeremy Swayman followed it up with a 35-stop shutout.
He may not be done.
The Bruins play the Rangers at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday. Like most coaches, Sacco prefers to rotate his goalies in back-to-back sets. But with Swayman rolling, Sacco may have no choice but to keep Joonas Korpisalo on the bench.
This is why Swayman scored a $66 million payday.
“It means you’re doing your job right,” Swayman answered when asked how it feels to see opponents’ heads sag after taking goals off the scoreboard. “You want to deflate the other team, making sure they know it’s going to be hard to score on you.”
Swayman made his flashiest and most timely stop in the second period. Trent Frederic had given the Bruins a 2-0 lead following a rush goal initiated by a Matt Poitras setup. The following shift did not go well. The Wild made the Bruins’ fourth line backtrack into the defensive zone, forcing an icing.
With the fourth line in full-on chase mode, Mats Zuccarello set up Matt Boldy, one of Minnesota’s best finishers, for a one-timer from the top of the right circle. Swayman had to push from right to left to follow Zuccarello’s pass across the slot line. By tracking the puck efficiently, Swayman put himself in good position to raise his glove and snatch Boldy’s 40-footer to keep the Bruins up by a pair.
“That was a shift when we were caught in our zone for a little while there,” Sacco said. “We did a decent job keeping most of it to the outside. But they did end up with the one quick look there with (Boldy) in the slot. Obviously that changes the game a little bit for us. We’re able to keep that lead we had. He made a couple of those saves here tonight.”
For the first 25 minutes, Swayman and Marc-Andre Fleury were matching each other save for save. The 40-year-old Fleury is concluding a Hall of Fame career. He is a throwback, not as wedded to technique and precision like goalies of Swayman’s generation. The athletic and effervescent Fleury remains an inspiration to competitors like Swayman, 26.
“I thought Fleury did a great job of that at the other end too,” said Swayman. “He’s having a ball doing his job. It was really fun to compete with him.”
Charlie McAvoy and Matt Poitras celebrate McAvoy’s opening goal in the second period. (Bob DeChiara / Imagn Images)
But the Bruins got on the board when Charlie McAvoy tipped a David Pastrnak shot past Fleury at 5:46 of the second. Later in the period, when the Wild got caught with three attackers deep in the offensive zone, Poitras and Frederic made them pay with their goal off the rush.
Poitras has four assists in the last two games. The No. 3 center is executing offensive plays and being dependable defensively, even when he was trapped in the defensive zone for a 2:36 shift in the second.
“I like his compete level,” Sacco said. “He had that one tough shift in the second period, getting caught out there in their end. Matty’s persistent. He’s on the puck. He wants the puck. He wants to make a difference when he has it. That’s what I like about his game, besides the fact he’s collecting some points. He’s competitive and he’s digging in.”
The Bruins are not perfect. They have to fight for every goal and emphasize structure in their end. But Tuesday’s win was a good blueprint for the rest of the run.
They buried an opportunity off the rush. McAvoy activated at the right time to get a piece of Pastrnak’s shot. They held their ground between the dots in the defensive zone and pushed the Wild to the perimeter.
But above all else, they got airtight goaltending. A dialed-in Swayman is non-negotiable for the rest of a successful run.
(Top photo of Jeremy Swayman making a skate save: Bob DeChiara / Imagn Images)
