If everything goes their way on Thursday night, the Boston Bruins will have accomplished the same thing as the Tampa Bay Lightning in their last outing: Breaking a losing streak.
The Bruins head to the Sunshine State for their first matchup this season against the Lightning having dropped five straight games (0-4-1).
This is fairly uncharted territory for Boston, which has not missed the playoffs since a 93-point output kept it out of the postseason in 2015-16.
The Bruins had 0-2-1 stretches in October and November that featured tough defeats to clubs that do not occupy a playoff spot now.
In the current stretch, Boston has suffered road setbacks at the Washington Capitals, New York Rangers and Toronto Maple Leafs. The Bruins also have dropped home tilts versus the New York Islanders in overtime and the Edmonton Oilers.
That’s one scant point in five games.
What lies ahead?
Road contests against Tampa Bay and the Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers, a return match against the Lightning and a trip to the Ottawa Senators.
The Bruins reside one point ahead of Tampa Bay, which has five games in hand.
“We don’t need to score a lot of goals to win games,” said captain Brad Marchand, who is second on the Bruins in goals (15) and points (32).
“The way we’ve always tried to win is to be really good defensively. We need to be comfortable in 2-1, 1-0 games, and we’ve gotten away from that a bit.”
Right winger David Pastrnak tops the team with 17 goals and 25 assists, while Pavel Zacha and Elias Lindholm have 21 and 20 points, respectively.
The Lightning have relied mostly on a team effort, getting contributions up and down the lines.
However, with a tie game on the line Tuesday against the Carolina Hurricanes and a four-game skid hanging in the balance, Tampa Bay turned to its two best forwards in the final minute — Brayden Point and Nikita Kucherov.
The linemates authored the game-winning goal in dramatic fashion to prevent their team and Boston from squaring off Thursday with each owning a five-game losing streak.
Kucherov fired a blind pass from the half-boards into the slot, where Point settled the puck, spun back to get off a forehand shot and pocketed his club-high 24th goal to cease the drought.
Nick Paul, who earlier reached the 10-goal mark, praised Point for his late-game heroics.
“He gets paid for a reason,” Paul said. “He’s a goal scorer, scored over 50 in this league. When he gets time in front of the net, good things will happen.”
Point’s goal pushed him to 599 points in 614 career games.
Kucherov’s 39th assist put him at 56 points, fifth in the league and 10 behind leader Nathan MacKinnon of the Colorado Avalanche entering play on Wednesday.
Goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy’s 17th win in 30 starts moved him to fifth in victories, tied with Vegas’ Adin Hill and Florida’s Sergei Bobrovsky.
–Field Level Media
