The Bruins closed out a perfect 5-0-0 homestand Thursday night with a 2-1 shootout victory over Columbus. That was the club's first perfect homestand of at least five games since 1986. It also stretched their overall win streak to seven games, matching their longest win streak of last year's championship season.
"We showed some character," Bruins center Patrice Bergeron said. "And right now we have some confidence and we're feeling good about ourselves and we're getting the bounces our way so we'll take it."
The two most striking elements of the team's turnaround have been the way these seven victories have shown how the Bruins can find so many different ways to win and how the Bruins have gotten contributions from so many different players.
The run started with a third-period rally against Ottawa back on Nov.1, with Johnny Boychuk and Daniel Paille scoring 37 seconds apart to snap a 3-3 tie and pull out a 5-3 win. That also started a trend. The Bruins scored a pair of goals less than a minute apart eight times during the seven-game win streak, with two other occasions of two goals in less than two minutes.
Those quick strikes helped them roll to a 7-0 rout of Toronto and convincing wins over the Islanders (6-2), Oilers (6-3) and Sabres (6-2). Things got tougher against the Devils, but the Bruins pulled out a 4-3 victory on Benoit Pouliot's goal to snap the tie with 3:01 left, then squeaked out an even tighter nail-biter in Thursday's shootout against last-place Columbus.
That one wasn't particularly pretty, but it may have been the most impressive win of the streak for that very reason. The Bruins were outplayed for much of the game by a desperate Columbus squad looking for any kind of sign it could still salvage something out of its spiraling season, but it was Boston that managed to come away with the two points.
"There were a lot of things that I didn't really specifically like about our game, but the one thing I liked is that no matter what, we still found a way to win," Bruins coach Claude Julien said. "There's going to be nights, when you have an 82-game schedule, where you play well and you come out with nothing and probably deserve better. And there's going to be nights where maybe don't get as good a game out of your team, but you still find a way to win, and that's where you've got to give credit to your team, is finding a way to win those games."
The ability to find a way to win those games when things aren't going well comes from the confidence gained in last year's Cup run and the faith in the system that brought Boston that championship. While the much discussed Cup hangover may have hampered them early in the season, having that experience to draw upon will prove a much bigger boon than an impediment the deeper into the season the Bruins get.
"We know what our strengths are," Bruins defenseman Andrew Ference said. "I think we have a real good grasp on what we're good at, and I think that's a real battle for some teams, is just first of all figuring out what works for them. So I think we have that going for us where everybody's right on the same page. It's not a mystery of how we have success. And so in games that are a little tough and you're not quite on it, at least everybody knows. You're not searching for answers and everybody knows what parts of the game have to be picked up.
"So I think the last couple of games have been a bit like that where people realize what's going on on our team," Ference added. "So we're able to lean on our system a lot and lean on some of the technical stuff. If we have that, we can stay in those ugly kinds of games. It's when we bring the extra kind of juice and whatnot. That's when we really get over the top and have the great games."
The Bruins also have the kind of depth to lean on that few teams can match. While the top two lines have done the bulk of the damage in this win streak, the Bruins have also gotten timely goals from throughout the lineup.
Tuesday it was Pouloit with the late-game winner one game after being a healthy scratch, while on Thursday it was defenseman Adam McQuaid scoring the only goal in regulation to tie the game at 1-1 in the second.
It was McQuaid's first goal in 43 games, including all of last year's playoffs, as he hadn't scored since a 7-0 whitewash of Montreal back on March 24. And even this one was originally credited to Rich Peverley, who provided the screen in front, but upon review it was ruled to have gone in without deflecting off Peverley.
"It was nice," McQuaid said. "If it had been Pevs it would have been fine too. It was just nice to see us pull even there. We were kind of snake-bitten there. We were hitting posts and maybe the shots that were going in on other nights weren't going in [Thursday], so yeah, it's always nice to score."
It was McQuaid's first point during the win streak, and he became the 20th different Boston skater to collect at least one point during the seven-game stretch. Steven Kampfer, who played just three of the games, is the only non-goalie to appear in any of those seven wins without a point.
"It's been a while," McQuaid said. "I'm not really focusing too much on the points, but it's always nice to be able to contribute offensively when you can."
Every Bruin can feel good about contributing to this turnaround. Fifteen different players have scored goals in the seven wins, which have been split between Tim Thomas and Tuukka Rask in goal with near equal effectiveness. Thomas is 4-0-0 with a 1.75 GAA during the streak, while Rask is 3-0-0 with a 1.95 GAA.
The usual suspects have been all over the scoresheet with Tyler Seguin leading the way with 7-3-10 totals and a plus-8. His linesmates Brad Marchand (4-5-9, plus-9) and Bergeron (1-6-7, plus-9) and the top line of David Krejci (2-5-7, plus-2), Milan Lucic (5-2-7, plus-4) and Nathan Horton (3-3-6, plus-1) have been nearly as effective, while Peverley has 1-5-6 totals and a plus-4 despite missing two of the games with an undisclosed injury and Zdeno Chara has led the defense with 0-9-9 totals and a plus-10.
The Bruins have combined for 35-57-82 totals and a plus-100 rating during the streak while moving within two points of the division lead with a game in hand on first-place Buffalo.
"Well it's nice, it feels good," Bergeron said of the streak. "That being said we can't worry about it or think about it too much. We've got to make sure we're turning the page every night and learning from what we can do better like we did [Thursday] and we're keeping the confidence going and being ready for the next game."
