The Bruins fell just short in a pair of road games in Florida leading into February’s NHL Olympic break, and most of Boston’s flaws were on display in both contests.
But they also managed to secure points by showing their undeniable team strengths in both games as they did in Wednesday night’s 5-4 loss to the Florida Panthers at Amerant Bank Arena, and now sit comfortably in the second wild card spot with a four-point cushion headed into the season’s pause.
The Bruins are on pace for a very respectable 99 points for the season, which would put them into a Stanley Cup playoff spot ahead of teams like the Maple Leafs, Blue Jackets and Capitals. With nine Bruins players, including David Pastrnak, Charlie McAvoy and Jeremy Swayman, headed to Milan Cortina for the 2026 Winter Olympics, there is a palpable “good vibes” feeling with the B’s players as they ready for the three week pause to the regular season.
Nothing has been secured for the Black and Gold, but they have already achieved much this season.
“Those are big points. It’s a grind right now and I think everybody can see that,” said Marco Sturm. “Unfortunately, twice [in the Florida games] we came up short in the shootout so that’s something we need to be better at. But going into Florida is always not an easy trip. You’ve got the Stanley Cup champions here and Tampa being the hottest team in the league and we survived. I give my guys to this point a lot of credit.
“Nobody thought we were going to be in this position that we are right now. And I am proud of them. But I think it’s, for all of us, good to have a little break and come back ready to go for the final month. I knew these guys were going to answer somehow. They weren’t going to give up. That was a really big point for us.”
And it’s well-deserved as Boston finished with a 12-2-3 flourish headed into the break and forced their way into the postseason structure with adequate defense, an elite power play, top drawer goaltending from Olympians Swayman and Joonas Korpisalo, and an offense that’s been better than expected over the balance of the season to date.
It remains to be seen what the team is going to look like post-Olympics, however, as Bruins fans were reminded on Wednesday as McAvoy was the target for a nasty flying elbow from Latvian Panthers forward Sandis Vilmanis that was adjudicated as a simple two-minute minor for an illegal head check.
Vilmanis left his skates before making contact and clearly picked McAvoy’s head with elevated forearm and elbow, and that is exactly the kind of thing that merits a match penalty and supplemental discipline.
But none of that was coming in the immediate moments afterward.
Sturm was seething in the aftermath of the clearly illegal hit and the light penalty sentence for it and was slapped with a bench minor for unsportsmanlike conduct in addition to Jonathan Aspirot getting dinged for going after Vilmanis. Postgame, Sturm was still clearly upset about the situation and rightfully so after there were a number of times in Florida where McAvoy was clearly fouled without a penalty called for it.
“I don’t know what to say. It was a brutal hit,” said Sturm. “Everyone saw it. You obviously get an opportunity to look at the replay too. To come out with a 4-on-4 like that, I didn’t understand it. I’m here to protect my guys, especially Charlie. If you target his head and it was clear to see, it just pisses me off.”
Once again, the Bruins showed both the penchant for taking penalties that got them into trouble in the second period, and then in the third period put on display the relentless, dogged fight to get back into the game. Mark Kastelic scored on a backhanded rebound of a Charlie McAvoy blast and Casey Mittelstadt tallied the game-tying score on the power play for his 12th goal of the season.
Many felt that this Wednesday night game was vital both in terms of Florida keeping their flagging playoff hopes alive, and for the Bruins once again rising to the occasion to brandish their postseason legitimacy against a quality opponent. It feels like both things were upheld in the 65 minutes of hockey plus the shootout where Brad Marchand, of course, scored the game-winning goal on a nasty top-shelf backhanded bid.
Marchand’s heroics were enough to even spur Pastrnak into
