The Boston Bruins are improving by the day, and since the turn of the new year have looked like the team we've grown used to seeing.
Their current pace, having won six of their last seven games, probably isn't sustainable. What realistically does need to be sustained is their depth scoring, which has been the engine for the current run.
But we've seen the Bruins earn some convincing wins over the last nearly two weeks. They thoroughly beat the Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday, proving they were capable of handling more than just the Buffalo Sabres and the like.
Bruins head coach Bruce Cassidy is practical about where his team stands compared to groups like Tampa.
"Well, we need more. We need, consistently, to play at a high level," Cassidy said Thursday over Zoom. "I think at the start of the year, we had our moments. I don't think we were as bad, or as far off, as some people thought. Obviously, our expectations are high and we weren't meeting ours and I'm not going to sugarcoat that. But we also knew we were working our way through some different things, and now we've come out the other side and we look more like what we want to.
"Things are going well right now," Cassidy continued. "We're not going to score at this pace continually, but if we can at least get closer to it, then that will help us a lot. I think our defensive identity has been there for a long time, kept us in some games earlier in the year when we weren't scoring, and now we're getting the results at the other end."
For the Bruins, it should be encouraging that they've handled the Lightning twice. Prior to the COVID-19 shutdown, the Bruins were having some trouble beating likely playoff teams, such as the Florida Panthers.
"As for getting closer to the other teams, we've seen Tampa twice, (and) I thought we outplayed them both times. That's a positive, those two particular games. But, again, you might catch a team at a certain time -- I think the first game (Nikita) Kucherov wasn't even playing, had a few other guys out of their lineup, (Brayden) Point I'm not sure was in. So, sometimes there's a little bit of that. ... At the end of the day, that's a small sample size, but we've played very well against them.
"Florida earlier in the year, good game at home, up there we couldn't keep up for 60 (minutes). And that was our problem at the start of the year was the full 60. So, the more you see those better teams, the better we'll be able to look at the measuring stick analogies. Right now we're just happy we're playing our game and inching toward those teams we felt we'd be competing with throughout. It maybe took us a little longer than we hoped, but we're getting there. Hopefully we continue to push and be right alongside them."
The Bruins have the Carolina Hurricanes coming up Tuesday, which represents a test similar to Tampa. That'll offer Boston another game to use as a measuring stick.
