The Boston Bruins tied a season-high with their fifth straight win Thursday night, shutting out the New York Rangers 3-0 at TD Garden.
Boston now has two five-game win streaks this season, but the current one is far more impressive than the first. One of the major reasons why is the quality of opposition.
The Bruins have played more quality teams during this streak, including victories over the Metropolitan Division-leading Pittsburgh Penguins and Atlantic Division-leading Tampa Bay Lightning. The victory over the New York Rangers, who were 8-2-0 in their last 10 games entering Thursday, also was impressive even though No. 1 goalie Henrik Lundqvist had the night off.
Here are three important factors of note from Boston’s recent resurgence.
1. Health
The Bruins have enjoyed a healthy roster over the last two weeks, which rarely happened in the first three months of the season.
Top-six center David Krejci and No. 1 defenseman Zdeno Chara returned in mid-December after 19- and 20-game absences, respectively. Veteran defenseman Adam McQuaid also returned after a two-month absence because of a broken finger. These players needed a bit of time to find their game again after returning from injury, but that’s no longer an issue.
“I think there’s some stability in the lineup. And even though we had a lot of those injured guys back just before we started playing better, they’ve just been off for two months,” Bruins head coach Claude Julien said Thursday. “I think a lot of people expected them to jump in and first game they were gonna be at their best, so I think it took us a while to get our team back to what we wanted to because of some of those players trying to find their games, getting our lines back together to what we’ve been mostly used to.
“I think the guys are now, I guess they’re finding their spot in the lineup and on the team and they understand their roles, everything’s clear. When you’ve got a bunch of injuries, you’re asking guys to play different roles and sometimes they have to step up and they can, but ask them to step up for a couple months is not an easy thing.”
2. Special Teams Improvement
Boston ranked inside the top 10 in both power-play percentage (third-best) and penalty killing (eighth-best) last season. The 2014-15 campaign has been a different story, but both units have improved over the last few weeks.
The Bruins have scored a power-play goal in seven of their last 12 games and have gone 25-for-26 on the penalty kill in seven January games. The B’s improved power play is among the reasons why the team has scored three or more goals in five straight games for the first time all season. Even when the power play has failed to score, Boston is still creating scoring chances and building momentum for future shifts.
3. Tuukka Rask is Playing at an Elite Level Again
Rask’s numbers aren’t Vezina Trophy-worthy like last season, when he won the award, but Boston’s starting goaltender has played exceptionally over the last month. He hasn’t lost in regulation since Dec. 19 and is 7-0-3 in his last 10 starts. Rask is 4-0-2 with a .943 save percentage this month, which includes the entirety of the Bruins’ five-game win streak.
He made 30 saves Thursday against the Rangers for his second shutout of the season and Julien called him the team’s “best player.”
