The Bruins' uninspiring Game 7 OT victory and previewing the Boston-Florida series

Monday 5/6/24

The Bruins advanced to the second round of the NHL playoffs with a Game 7 OT win over the Leafs on Saturday night, which inspired no confidence in me going forward. When I saw just before the game that Leafs goalie Joseph Hall wouldn't be able to go because of injury, I thought the Bruins were that much more likely to win. Here was their opening.

You want a team to go out and take the victory for themselves, not need it to be gifted to them, but the Leafs are gift bearers, and the Bruins, despite dropping the present a number of times, finally picked it up and said, "Thank you, Toronto."

They needed that goalie not to play, or else they would have lost. It took everything in the nature of a gift for the Bruins to advance in this series: a soft, choking team with a bad defense, a bad starting goalie, and you still blew a 3-1 series lead and were trailing halfway through the third and needed OT to prevail.

That wasn't just it, though. The Bruins needed a goal from defenseman Hampus Lindholm. Do you know how bad Lindholm is in the playoffs?

Early in the game, he committed one of his many turnovers, and play-by-play guy Sean McDonough called it bizarre, a sentiment echoed right away by analyst Ray Ferraro. They termed it thusly because nothing forced the turnover save Lindholm's own nerves. There was no rhyme or reason to it in the run of play. He wasn't pressured. He simply passed the puck to the opponent. He turns it over almost as if to simply do so. He gives you no offensive production from the backline, especially in the playoffs--his last postseason goal had been in 2018--but in a near-shocking turn of events, he had six shots on goal and potted the equalizer not long after the Leafs took that 1-0 third period lead.

Charlie McAvoy, by the way, had a single shot on goal. Hockey-reference tells me that Charlie McAvoy's nickname is "Bonafide Stallion," which sounds like something Jack Edwards probably said. Way to gallop, stallion.

The Bruins were once again beaten soundly in the face-off circle, but not as soundly as the game before.

What is a Bruins backer supposed to feel good about here?

Here's another thought: When you come from behind, having been in a position for a stretch where you have no margin left for error, there's a law of averages factor that kicks in. You won't get all the breaks, or all the breaks you need. One break won't go your way, and because there's so little room for error, it may well prove the fatal break.

I feel like the law of averages kicked in and the Bruins were due for something in their favor. You add all of this up--the fluke Lindholm offensive effort, the goalie who was winning games getting hurt and being unavailable, the bad Leafs defense and roster-building, the Leafs' own penchant for gagging victory away, the law of averages--and you get your first round playoff victory. (But wasn't it remarkable how close we came to a fulfillment of the curse of the 65 wins?)

As I said the other day, someone had to win, like it would be by default. That's what I think this series victory was for the Bruins. A win by default and despite themselves.

Huzzah.

So now it's time for a rematch of last year's opening series between the Panthers and the Bruins. No one is picking the Bruins, just as no one picked the Panthers last year, and I won't be picking them either, but they do have a few things in their favor.

Florida has been off for a while. Teams that have been off for a while often struggle in that first game back, or at least for a chunk of it.

The Bruins don't have home ice, which to them will mean they have less pressure. Sad but true. They do better when they're not expected to win and are on the road.

A team can loosen up when it fails to fail--also sad but true--and start playing a better, freer game.

The Bruins have their goalie, or so it would appear. No more of this goalie rotation fiddle-faddle. The goaltending should be good and reliable. I don't want to call Jeremy Swayman a hot goalie because he's not stealing games, but he's been solid. He's soft and fragile himself, but he's feeling confident in his game right now. A guy like this does well then. It's when he's rattled that he struggles to get it going in a positive direction once more.

Less positive: I think other teams would be highly motivated after what happened last year when facing the opponent who embarrassed them, but not so much these Bruins.

You also really never know, though. Sometimes a team looks bad, plays flat for whatever reason, barely gets past some team after they had them down, and then things lock into place and they start dealing. A little belief can go a long way in sport and in life. I don't think that's how this team will be, but I do almost always allow for the possibility and I do so here.