One of the characters from one of the greatest sports movies of all time, “White Men Can’t Jump”, has a signature, purposely somewhat nonsensical philosophy about winning and losing in sports.
“Sometimes when you win, you really lose, and sometimes when you lose, you really win, and sometimes when you win or lose, you actually tie, and sometimes when you tie, you actually win or lose. Winning or losing is all one organic mechanism, from which one extracts what one needs.”
The Boston Bruins lost Tuesday night’s road trip finale, 3-2, to the Habs in overtime at the Bell Centre in Montreal and actually lost two of the three games on the road swing through Washington, New Jersey and Montreal. But in many ways, they took wins out of pushing Tuesday’s game in Montreal to overtime, and of taking four out of a possible six points in three challenging spots while playing three games in four days on the road.
It was a bit of a bitter pill when Pavel Zacha couldn’t convert on a breakaway in overtime that fed right into Cole Caufield’s overtime winner for his 40th goal of the season, but the Bruins still maintained their hold on a wild-card playoff spot while conquering some of their road demons. Certainly, there weren’t a lot of long faces after the B’s battled well against a Montreal team they might just see in the playoffs while still closely chasing them in the Atlantic Division standings.
“Guys worked extremely hard for 60 minutes. Coming in here on a back-to-back and with these guys waiting in here for us, give my guys a lot of credit. They worked,” said Marco Sturm. “Unfortunately, we had it [last night we hit a post and tonight it was a breakaway we didn’t convert], but sometimes it’s not on our side. I’m proud of my guys and it’s a good road trip. We wanted to be .500 and above and we did that, so now we go home and we reset.”
For better or for worse, nothing has essentially changed for the Bruins coming home from the road with the Blue Jackets still hot on their heels, but at least the B’s have pulled ahead of the Red Wings in terms of tiebreakers that have them ahead of Detroit for the top wild card spot in the playoff structure.
The Bruins also scratched for a power play goal and generally looked better on the man advantage after struggling out of the Olympic break. And Pavel Zacha continues perhaps his finest NHL season with a two-goal effort that sees him at a career-high 22 goals on the season, even as it was his high-and-wide miss with an OT breakaway bid that couldn’t close the deal in Montreal.
“We stepped into the game really good. I think we were ready for the game,” said Zacha. “I think getting a point is good for us and even in the third period I thought we [played] a really good game. It’s just a shame we couldn’t win in overtime, but overall, it was a good effort. Sway was playing ubelievable. We just learn from the mistakes and keep it moving.
“We are clicking on our line, and I think power play helps too [with the individual goal-scoring]. That kind of gives you more of the looks and the points there, so you just have to keep building on it.”
But it’s also time to give the Bruins credit in a lot of ways, as they have the third-best point percentage (.704) in the NHL since Jan. 1 and are on a pace that will get them close to 100 points at the end of the regular season. It should be enough to
