{"id":277476,"date":"2025-11-07T15:31:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T15:31:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/277476\/"},"modified":"2025-11-07T15:31:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T15:31:12","slug":"bruins-are-playing-winning-hockey-and-its-absolutely-for-real","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/277476\/","title":{"rendered":"Bruins are playing winning hockey, and it\u2019s absolutely for real"},"content":{"rendered":"

BOSTON \u2014 The Boston Bruins have won five straight games. Their latest was a 3-2 overtime victory over the Ottawa Senators on Thursday.<\/p>\n

If the Bruins keep playing this way, more two-point results are around the corner.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just that they have been winning \u2014 it is the nature in which they\u2019ve banked points. Boston has not been asking Joonas Korpisalo and Jeremy Swayman to steal wins, which they had to do earlier this season. The team has not been waiting for their stars to light up the scoreboard.<\/p>\n

The Bruins are winning because they have executed their most critical responsibility: defending.<\/p>\n

They have closed rapidly in the defensive zone. They have assembled layers in front of their goalies. They have waited for assistance instead of overpursuing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve each got a job in the D-zone. Just do your job,\u201d said Sean Kuraly, who gave the Bruins a 2-1 lead in the second period. \u201cSometimes you\u2019re starting to give up goals and you\u2019re starting to think, \u2018I need to do more.\u2019 The message from the coaching staff is, \u2018Come back. Take a deep breath. Do your job.\u2019 If there\u2019s a breakdown, we can help each other out. But let\u2019s not be too quick to want to put out fires or go too far outside of the system.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Natural Stat Trick, the Senators were expected to score 0.83 goals during five-on-five play. It was the lowest xGA the Bruins have allowed this season, following a 2.17 xGA effort in Tuesday\u2019s 4-3 shootout win over the New York Islanders and a 1.82 xGA sparkler in a 2-1 result<\/a> over the Carolina Hurricanes on Nov. 1. These were much stingier performances than the 3.76 xGA game against the Buffalo Sabres on Oct. 30, which the Bruins were fortunate to win<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Bruins were built to win this way.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t have a lot of goal scorers,\u201d said coach Marco Sturm. \u201cSo we have to work for it. These guys tried so hard today. That will be a challenge all year long. Power play, that\u2019s why it\u2019s so important for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

The thing that makes Sturm optimistic about the games to come is that his players now know how to execute his system. It is a sustainable process, not one that is necessarily subject to randomness.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe game without the puck, that should be our bread and butter moving forward for the whole season,\u201d said Sturm.<\/p>\n

\"John<\/p>\n

\n The Bruins have embraced a solid defensive structure under new coach Marco Sturm. (Rich Gagnon \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Charlie McAvoy and Nikita Zadorov are humming on the No. 1 pair. McAvoy is using his feet to get out of trouble. Zadorov is eliminating bodies every game.<\/p>\n

In overtime, McAvoy made two threatening moves by swooping near the net. His first setup for Pavel Zacha went side. On McAvoy\u2019s second go-around, Zacha put the winner behind ex-teammate Linus Ullmark with 5.5 seconds remaining in overtime.<\/p>\n

Hampus Lindholm has played in five straight games after returning from a lower-body injury. It is not a coincidence that the Bruins have won all five. The left-shot defenseman has been noticeable with his stick, feet and positioning in the defensive and neutral zones. His offensive game is coming.<\/p>\n

As for Andrew Peeke, Lindholm\u2019s partner, the right-shot defenseman made his mark with two assists against the Senators. Peeke paid the price physically, too. In the second period, Peeke was checked into the boards in front of the Bruins\u2019 bench by Tyler Kleven. Peeke needed time in the dressing room to recover. Later in the second, while killing a penalty, Peeke took a David Perron slap shot off the right hand.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re protecting good ice,\u201d said Peeke. \u201cWe\u2019re winning battles. We\u2019re getting the puck out of the zone. We\u2019re a little bit cleaner in all three zones, not just the D-zone. We\u2019re protecting the middle of the ice, keeping people on the outside and we\u2019re winning battles.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jonathan Aspirot and Henri Jokiharju have been fulfilling their responsibilities on the No. 3 pair. It leaves Mason Lohrei, a healthy scratch for the entire winning streak, with no choice but to wait his turn.<\/p>\n

The Bruins have scored two five-on-five goals in each game of their streak. It\u2019s not much. But it\u2019s been enough because of how they\u2019ve checked.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhirlwind of a game,\u201d said Peeke. \u201cFeel good. Happy to get the win. Good feeling in the room right now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BOSTON \u2014 The Boston Bruins have won five straight games. Their latest was a 3-2 overtime victory over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":277477,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[1785,385,99],"class_list":["post-277476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-boston-bruins","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=277476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277476\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/277477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}