Bruins Prepared to Weather Loss of Marco Sturm With Perseverance
While this was obviously disheartening news to Sturm and his teammates, it's just another injury in what has been a season riddled with injuries and adversity.
Almost immediately after Sturm had to be helped off the ice during the game's opening minute, the Bruins responded the same way they have all season to these setbacks. They adapted and perservered.
Steve Begin jumped into Sturm's spot riding the left wing with Patrice Bergeron and Mark Recchi. On his first shift with his new linemates, the tenacious winger scored the game's first goal 2:39 into the first period.
"I knew when he threw me out there with Bergeron and Recch, something was going to happen," Begin said following the game. "It's easy with them. They've got a good dynamic. They're so strong on the puck, they're so smart, and they work so hard so you know something is going to happen out there. So I went to the net, the puck went on my stick and I had to shoot it in."
Begin has been one of many forwards used to a grinding role on the third and fourth lines who has found himself moving up to the first and second lines due to injuries or a coach's decision. Last series, it was Daniel Paille who saw some top-line duties when Milan Lucic struggled, and with each game, it's another player who needs to step up.
"You got to be ready for anything … and you got to use it and take advantage of it when you get a chance like that," Begin said. "It's fun. It gives myself a little boost and it gave us the lead and it was a great start from our team. Every line was going shift after shift and then we got the goal."
Saturday, he was one of many forwards that had to adapt on the fly and not only make up for the absence of Sturm but also the reduced minutes of Marc Savard, who was playing his first game since March 7. Factor in Vladimir Sobotka getting hurt and missing a significant amount of time during the game, and everyone had to pick up the slack.
David Krejci (25:37), Milan Lucic (23:37), Bergeron (23:01) and Miroslav Satan (24:58) all finished with over 23 minutes of ice time as they found themselves double- and even triple-shifting at times.
"Sometimes in the playoffs, things like that happen and you just have to make the most of it," Bergeron said. "For us, we just had to all step up and do the job and keep the shifts short."
The Bruins have made the most of it all season and they're not about to stop now, nor do they fear they may struggle to continue to overcome and adapt.
"It's never easy when you lose a guy on his first shift and you know, we kind of had some set lines that we wish we could have been using," said head coach Claude Julien. "That's been basically the way we've operated. But with all of the injuries we've had this year, everybody's kind of played with everybody. So certainly it helped in that manner and we found a way again to get through it."
