Bruins Lean On ‘Value Players’ In Road Victory To Extend Winning Streak

The Boston Bruins have come out of the Christmas break with a resurgence, winning four straight games for the first time since October.

Despite a slow start in Columbus on Tuesday night, the Bruins gutted out a 4-1 victory over the Blue Jackets. In the win, Boston thrived off of the production of rising contributors on goals from Kevin Shattenkirk, Trent Frederic, Danton Heinen and James van Riemsdyk.

In a new episode of the “Morning Bru” podcast, NESN analysts Billy Jaffe and Andrew Raycroft broke down the boost from evolving talents.

“We knew this team would have to grind out wins,” Jaffe said. “We talked about that numerous times early in the season. The offensive look had changed significantly. You talk about value, value players scored in this game. … You get those guys that are making between $775K-$1 million to score.”

With so much pressure often on superstars such as Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak to drive the goal-scoring department, having a deeper depth of scoring options adds that much more potential for the Bruins.

“This is what this team needed,” Jaffe added. “They needed somebody besides Pastrnak and Marchand and (Charlie) Coyle to step up.”

Particularly, Raycroft marveled at the ability of the Bruins’ veteran players to understand the mental battle of a long season and find ways to elevate their play.

“For the most part, they’ve gotten it from somewhere,” Raycroft said. “Especially from these veteran guys that recognize how hard it is to mentally get up. Two of them have been the superstars where they’ve needed the back end of the lineup to pick them up some nights.”

Through 36 games, Boston sits at the top of the Eastern Conference at 23-7-6 with 52 points.

The Bruins return home to host the Pittsburgh Penguins at TD Garden on Thursday night. Puck drop is set for 7 p.m. ET and will air on ESPN.