At this point in the season, and by virtue of an unbelievable month of March, the Boston Bruins have nothing to play for from now until the start of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. They’re likely going to be the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference, and they’ll draw whichever poor soul just so happens to fall into the conference’s second wild card seed. The Toronto Maple Leafs on the other hand, a team vying for that aforementioned wild card spot, have everything to play for right now.
So maybe that’s why last night’s end result shouldn’t exactly shock you, even if the Leafs decided to Leaf it up all game long.
In the second leg of a back-to-back last night, the Bruins’ 16th one this year (and they entered with a 13-2-0 in those games), the Bruins and Leafs traded blows in a battle of who wants it less.
First, Paul Ranger struck for fifth goal of the year when the puck was in essence lost in front of B’s netminder Chad Johnson. Not even a minute later, a Cody Franson turnover put the puck on the stick of Brad Marchand and into the Leafs’ cage, giving Marchand his 23rd goal of the year and just his fourth in 20 games since the end of the league’s Olympic break.
From there, it seemed as if the puck was a ticking timebomb for Toronto. With the Black-and-Gold carrying the puck into their zone without much resistance (a theme of the night, season, Carlyle era, really), the Leafs were bailed out with just 12 seconds left in the period, as a blown assignment gave Tyler Bozak a goal off a deflection off his body and into the net.
Leafs: 2, Bruins: 1.
The goal was an obvious backbreaker given the way that the Bruins had pressed prior to the goal, and when James van Riemsdyk took advantage of a Dougie Hamilton gaffe behind the net, a 3-1 edge for the Leafs told us that they were going to survive another day.
But when the puck dropped for the third, the Bruins took over. Or the Leafs quit attacking. I don’t know which one was more apparent, to be honest. Boston struck with a Milan Lucic goal five minutes into the period, and tied things up almost 13 minutes into the third, just a few minutes after James Reimer relieved the injured Jonathan Bernier.
“Uh-oh,… you could hear the Air Canada Centre mutter.
Finishing the period with a 17-to-5 shot advantage, the Bruins were victimized by some breaks that went Toronto’s way and failed the capitalize on the ones that went their way. Dougie Hamilton face was gashed by a Phil Kessel high-stick, no call. But when the Bruins were given a power play opportunity on a soft call against Toronto’s Nikolai Kulemin, they whiffed. At a certain point, you need to make your own luck, and the Bruins did not.
Toronto, did however, when the worst holding call of the year against Torey Krug put the Leafs on a power play in overtime, and Nazem Kadri scored the game-winner. And though the game meant the world to the Leafs, the general theme from Boston was a simple well, who cares?
In the final two weeks of the regular season, the Bruins are going to be all about the tinkering. That’s why you saw Loui Eriksson reunited with Bergeron and Marchand on the club’s second line, Jordan Caron log minutes on the third line, and why the pairing of Matt Bartkowski and Kevan Miller were together on the penalty kill. The final week plus of this year is going to be one big experiment, and that’s honestly for the best because you just never know what can happen in a four-round playoff run (if the Bruins are so lucky this year).
At the same time, however, this is a test for some of the Bruins’ younger defensemen. See: the case of one Bartkowski, Matt. This is the first season where the 24-year-old has played more than 11 games at the National Hockey League level, and his immersion into the Boston d-rotation on a full time basis wasn’t exactly the most welcoming. “Hey, Dennis Seidenberg is done for the year. Take his minutes!…
Still, you’d ideally like to see more from Bartkowski, especially when he’s without question battling for a playoff spot against deadline acquisition Andrej Meszaros (a healthy scratch last night after a rough outing against the Detroit Red Wings the night prior). But the simple fact that he’s still in development is obvious, and one you can’t ignore even if his role is greater than his present ceiling.
Based on competition and ice-time though, you’d think that Bartkowski is still the Bruins’ guy for the playoffs, slated to skate with Johnny Boychuk on the club’s second pairing. And barring an injury before the postseason, the 28-year-old Meszaros will be the team’s seventh defender.
(But again, the tinkerin’ doesn’t look like it’s going to stop any time soon, so who knows.)
One thing the Bruins are considering, or at least from the look of last night’s contest, is trying to get Eriksson going back on the second line with Bergeron and Marchand. It’s an interesting idea, and one that they started the year with, but one I’m not all that crazy about given how well Eriksson’s played on the third line with Carl Soderberg (out last night) and Chris Kelly.
As I’ve said a billion times now too, the one-two punch of Soderberg-Eriksson is not only intriguing, but has established some chemistry of late, and gives the B’s a bona fide third-line punch. That'll be invaluable if a team shuts the Krejci or Bergeron line down for a series.
That switch demotes Reilly Smith, a player with one goal in his last 24 games played, back down to the third line. And while much has been made of Smith’s scoring drought, the Bruins have been open about the faith they have in Smith, who’s still recorded eight assists over that stretch, and have noted that Smith’s a player that’ll do more with a pat on the back than a kick in the pants. The latter point leaves him out of Milan Lucic in ‘13 or Tyler Seguin in ‘11 benchings.
And as it turns out, you really can’t expect the 23-year-old to shoot at a lethal 22% success rate like he did from December through January like he did this year. Who woulda thunk?
Campbell nominated for Masterton Trophy
Doing his best to kill a Pittsburgh power play on a broken leg, the image of Gregory Campbell hobbling around and off the ice in the Eastern Conference Finals is one that won't soon leave the memory banks of Bruins fans. That was in June, and by October, the center of the Bruins' beloved Merlot line was ready to go.
That was enough to earn him the club's nod for the 2014 Masterton Memorial Trophy, as decided by the Boston Chapter of the Professional Hockey Writer's Association.
“Gregory Campbell’s entire hockey career has been about perseverance, dedication to hockey and paying the highest level of respect to the game he loves so much," said Joe Haggerty, PHWA Boston chapter chairman and Bruins beat reporter for CSNNE.com. "The image of Campbell gritting his way through excruciating pain to finish a penalty kill shift with a broken leg during last year’s conference final is one nobody will soon forget. It’s also the perfect example of Campbell’s dedication to his team, selflessness and willingness to give every last ounce he has to fully compete. That doesn't even include Campbell's heavy involvement in the community, including delivering pies to Boston homeless shelters on Thanksgiving morning each year. The Boston Chapter of the PHWA is proud to nominate Gregory Campbell for this season’s Masterton Trophy.…
It's a nice honor for Campbell, and one that comes in a year kinda short on adversity for the Black-and-Gold, all things considered. Other potential nominees include Eriksson, who suffered two concussions, or perhaps Chad Johnson, a journeyman AHL goaltender that turned into perhaps the league's best backup goaltender.