Haggs: Boston Bruins Ready To Have ‘Fun Shutting [Playoff] Teams Down’

BOSTON — With Tuesday night time’s 4-2 win over the Florida Panthers, the Boston Bruins clinched that they’ll fall no decrease than the highest wild card spot within the Jap Convention playoff construction.

Positive, they’ll nonetheless catch the Tampa Bay Lightning for the third spot within the Atlantic Division, and a first-round matchup in opposition to the Toronto Maple Leafs, as they’re three factors behind the Bolts with every hockey membership nonetheless holding two video games to be performed.

Nevertheless it positive seems to be just like the Boston Bruins are going to face the Carolina Hurricanes within the first spherical of the playoffs after the Canes clinched the Metro Division with their fifth win in a row. The Canes aren’t precisely postseason strangers to the Black and Gold as the 2 groups confronted one another within the 2020 bubble playoffs in Toronto, and Carolina was unceremoniously swept by the Boston Bruins within the Jap Convention Last en path to the 2019 Stanley Cup Last.

It’s a unique Hurricanes workforce, although, as this season Carolina has overwhelmed the Boston Bruins in all three conferences and outscored by them an unmistakably crushing 16-1 margin over these three video games.

The excellent news is that the 2 Jap Convention groups haven’t performed one another since Feb. 10 and Boston Bruins head coach Bruce Cassidy thinks it will likely be a unique story ought to they meet once more beginning subsequent week.

“Let’s use Carolina for example. We haven’t seen them in a very long time,” mentioned Boston Bruins head coach Bruce Cassidy. “We’re performing at a a lot greater degree than after we performed them earlier on, so we’re not going to take so much from these video games apart from right here’s what Carolina likes to do: They’re in your face they usually wish to press everywhere in the ice.

“And also you don’t know if Carolina would possibly resolve to vary that. I don’t suppose they are going to as a result of they’ve been very profitable. On the finish of the day, I don’t suppose many groups change their stripes going into the playoffs particularly when you’ve had a profitable 12 months. Whenever you have a look at the groups within the East they’ve all hit 100 factors, in order that they’re going to really feel like they’ve acquired a very good hockey membership. I wouldn’t anticipate any workforce altering the way in which they play [to start the playoffs]. That occurs extra alongside the way in which if you need to make changes.”

At this level it would both be the Hurricanes or the Maple Leafs for the Boston Bruins within the first spherical, however Taylor Corridor provided a really cogent breakdown on plenty of prospects. All of them would require the Boston Bruins to play the sort of sensible, hard-working protection with a five-man unit that was on full show in opposition to the NHL’s most explosive offense within the Florida Panthers on Tuesday night time.

The Bruins managed play, outshot the Panthers 37-21 and managed to maintain the Panthers gamers off-balance offensively on an evening the place admittedly Florida won’t have had their “A” sport. The one actual blemish was the objective they allowed within the remaining second of the primary interval, a nasty behavior that’s occurred to them an NHL-leading 25 occasions this season.

“We’ve completed a very good job [defensively] and that’s the identification we’ve talked about. Going into the playoffs, whoever we play: Carolina is admittedly good offensively they usually generate lots of possibilities with pace and forechecking. Florida, you noticed [on Tuesday night] is extra of a rush workforce. New York was good in zone, they usually transfer pucks shortly by way of guys,” mentioned Corridor. “Whoever it’s we’re going to must be good defensively. That’s actually our identification. It’s not one thing now we have to vary or do something completely different, we simply must play that construction nicely.

“It’s enjoyable. It’s enjoyable shutting down different groups. Particularly our line, we’re an offensive line however after we’re good in our finish and we get pucks again then the sky is the restrict. I believe our entire workforce actually buys into that.”

So what to make of Boston’s remaining couple of normal season tune-ups and the following playoff journey that awaits subsequent week?

Whether or not it’s the Maple Leafs or the extra doubtless Hurricanes, the Boston Bruins have all types of excellent luck and constructive outcomes in opposition to both of these groups in recent times. Toronto has been chronically uncovered through the years by the Bruins as a comfortable, defensively challenged and not-ready-for-prime-time hockey workforce that admittedly has heavy offensive artillery with Auston Matthews hitting the 60-goal mark this season.

Carolina, alternatively, has been an inexperienced foe and a considerably straightforward mark for the Bruins in recent times, however it is a group that has in-their-prime gamers like Jaccob Slavin, Sebastian Aho and Andrei Svechnikov hitting their prime years whereas well-coached by Rod Brind’Amour. The Hurricanes really feel like that is their time they usually would possibly simply be proper.

The one space that could be their downfall? Goaltending the place Freddie Andersen is at present injured after a stellar season and Antti Raanta has been out and in of motion in latest days as nicely even when it seems to be like he is perhaps okay to begin subsequent week’s Stanley Cup playoffs. The goaltending problem could also be their undoing, nevertheless, for a balanced workforce that’s averaging 3.35 targets per sport and is first within the NHL in each targets allowed and penalty kill this season.

It feels prefer it’s going to be a harder go-round for the Bruins in opposition to the Canes this season, nevertheless, even when shifting over to the Metro Division playoff bracket is best for Boston whereas Florida, Tampa Bay and Toronto slug it out in opposition to one another within the Atlantic. Both approach, the Boston Bruins know there isn’t a straightforward path within the East this season as all eight groups enter the postseason as 100-point hockey golf equipment and extremely able to beating some other workforce in a sequence.