The Boston Bruins opened the 2023-24 season with a 6-0-0 record for the second time in franchise history following their 3-0 win over the Chicago Blackhawks on Tuesday night.
It didn’t take many flashy, highlight reel plays for the Boston Bruins to reach their undefeated 6-0-0 opening season record.
No individual on the team is playing the best hockey of their career – perhaps with the exception of Matt Poitras – but the B’s have stuck to their structure and put forth a simple, direct game that has made them regular residents in the win column.
Tuesday’s 3-0 victory over the Chicago Blackhawks is a prime example of the Bruins not straying from their system after a flat first period and, instead, continuing to do the small things until the goals started flowing in the latter half of the night. Patience is a virtue, but it’s also only possible when a team, on a nightly basis, has the confidence it can pull a win out of anything. And so far, the Bruins have exactly that.
“It was a good battle,” Bruins coach Jim Montgomery said postgame. “I thought we won races to the goal line, allowed us to possess pucks offensively. Our D-men did a great job, I thought they controlled the game in the second and the third with their gaps, their skating, puck movement.”
It wasn’t only that the defenseman held it down on the backend, it was that the entire team – no matter what position – was committed to hounding pucks and clogging up lanes in all three zones.
The Bruins held Chicago to seven shots on goal in the second period, and by the final buzzer, outshot their opponent 43-23. What’s more, Boston has allowed just seven goals in six games, in large part due to the formidable Linus Ullmark-Jeremy Swayman tandem, but also because of its 200-foot support.
“These guys took very close attention to detail, played the game plan perfectly,” said Swayman, who made 23 saves for the 10th shutout of his career. “And that's special to see as a goalie. You see these guys working their butts off to backcheck, taking away lanes and obviously blocking shots and scoring some big goals in a timely manner.”
Poitras got his third goal in two games off of the exact type of play Swayman described. Morgan Geekie and the 19-year-old center pressured Corey Perry at the blueline, stripped him of the puck and off Poitras went to make it 2-0. Montgomery has always preached it, offense comes from good defense, and his squad has put it into practice throughout its unmarked start.
“There’s been a few plays where I’m hard on the puck in the D-zone, I’m in the right spots, and then you kind of see you get rewarded going the other way and you get some rush offense and some sustained O-time,” Poitras said postgame. “For me, everything just starts in the D-zone and I want to just keep working on my complete game and getting better every day.”
Despite the road trip sweep, there are still things to work out. The Bruins are now 3-for-22 on the power play after going 0-for-4 on Tuesday, but, on the flip side, improved to 24-for-25 on the penalty kill after going 3-for-3 against Chicago.
Slow starts and careless turnovers can’t become a pattern and won’t be part of a winning recipe later in the season, and the Bruins know that. Montgomery has emphasized that his group is still a “work in progress,” but they have found ways to win, primarily through hard work.
“Loved the results, love our goaltending, and starting to see our team identity build,” Montgomery said. “I think the LA game and this game tonight, you’re starting to see us become a heavy, grinding team which I think is what we’re gonna have to be.”