Three Takeaways from the Bruins’ 4-2 Win Over the Kings

The Boston Bruins boosted their undefeated streak to four games on Saturday night with a 4-2 win over the Los Angeles Kings. Arguably the toughest matchup on their four-game road trip, Brad Marchand and his two-goal night kept the B’s together as they got contributions – whether scoring or not – from up and down the lineup.

Three takeaways from the victory, below:

Morgan Geekie finally cashed in for his first goal as a Bruin at 14:45 in the second period after a productive start to the season despite the lack of point production. The net-front, rebound shot gave Boston a 2-1 lead, and Trent Frederic followed the tally with a fight that shifted the momentum of the night.

Kings defenseman Andreas Englund eagerly dropped the gloves just to be taken down in dominant fashion by Frederic, whose punches were all connecting. Frederic offered consistency and spunk on the third line with James van Riemsdyk and Charlie Coyle, and the bout added another layer to the winger’s performance and purpose.

“I think we started getting more physical, we got emotion into our game. Give ‘Freddy’ a great job with the fight because I think it really – our bench really got going on that,” Bruins coach Jim Montgomery said postgame. “And then what I think, we just wore out the back of the net, we held onto pucks. I think we really saw the type of team we believe we can be.”

With Jake DeBrusk out of the lineup due to being late to a team meeting, Milan Lucic slotted into the first line with Pavel Zacha and David Pastrnak – who now has a goal in every game. Patrick Brown and Ian Mitchell got their first game action of the season, Brown filling the left wing on the fourth line and Mitchell skating with Derek Forbort on the third pair.

The B’s took the lineup tweaks in stride and built a strong 60 minutes around each other.

The Bruins found themselves down 5-on-3 for just under a minute at the beginning of the first period. A 2:01 interference call on Coyle followed by a 3:06 boarding call on Johnny Beecher put Boston’s penalty kill to the test and it delivered, squandering the Kings’ chance to take an early lead.

“It’s nice getting shots early on,” Swayman said postgame. “Our structure was phenomenal and that’s something that we use as a momentum piece rolling forward is killing off two big penalties and a 5-on-3 as well.”

Jeremy Swayman, in his second start of the season, posted 32 saves on Saturday, including a couple of big ones on the first PK. The B’s PK ultimately went 5-for-6 on the night, aided by special team stalwarts Coyle and Forbort.

“He’s the hardest worker on the team,” Swayman said of Coyle. “You can’t steal the puck from him. I love when he gets the puck because he’s got some of the best stick handling skills in this league, and obviously separation from other bodies. He’s a workhorse and it shows – I’m so happy when he’s on the ice during a penalty kill.”

Through 22:20 of total ice time – 5:13 of which was served on the penalty kill – Forbort played his best game of the season thus far, showing pieces of the dependable, direct defenseman role he was known for in the 2022-23 campaign.

Forbort, who played for the Kings from 2015-2020, logged two secondary assists, one on Geekie’s goal and one on Marchand’s first of the game – a wrister at 15:33 of the second period to make it 3-1 Boston.

“Yeah, I don’t really care about points but anytime you get them it’s nice. It’s fun to come back and see all of the guys,” Forbort said postgame.

The blue line veteran is still working through a groin injury that he suffered early in training camp, but looked as close to full health as he has this year while on a pair with Mitchell. Having all three d-pairs rolling – including the duos of Matt Grzelcyk-Charlie McAvoy and Hampus Lindholm-Brandon Carlo – enabled the Bruins to shut the Kings down in the latter half of the third period.

“He tweaked his groin early in camp and then now you’re starting to see a player that’s the player that we saw last year,” Montgomery said of Forbort. “He’s really assertive defensively; blocking shots, getting pucks out on the penalty kill. He’s getting more assertive offensively too.”

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The Anaheim Ducks are up next on Sunday for a Bruins team facing its first back-to-back action of the season. Puck drop is at 8:30pm ET at the Honda Center. The Hockey News will have full game converge, so be sure to follow along.