Resiliency: A Boston Bruins Story

The Boston Bruins are blossoming into something special right before our very eyes.

Bruce Cassidy’s squad has found just about every way to win amidst their 18-game point streak and the team unity has never been better. Boston’s latest contest, a 4-3 come-from-behind victory over the Florida Panthers, highlighted maybe its most important quality; resiliency.

No matter the situation, the Bruins have a genuine belief in each other and in themselves to get the job done. Thursday night was the latest example.

The Bruins fought against the grain and chased the Panthers from the opening puck drop. Yet, it didn’t matter. They knew they could get the job done.

Down by a goal with under a minute left, Tuukka Rask skated off the ice for the extra attacker as Boston searched for the equalizer. As he made his way toward the bench, the Finnish goaltender believed that they would find another way to win.

“Hoping. Just hoping,” Rask said about his mindset. “Special group for sure. It’s in our DNA now that we just don’t give up.  We go about our business and just battle until the end and then, like I said, sometimes it pays off and sometimes it doesn’t. I think that itself is a special thing when you just don’t give up you keep plugging away and know that the good things are going to happen when you do that. They’ve been lately.”

As it turns out, Boston had them right where it wanted them. The Bruins, with their backs against the wall, netted two goals in 30 seconds during the final minute of regulation to snag victory from the jaws of defeat in dramatic fashion.

“Listen, our guys have a lot of resiliency, a lot of belief in themselves,” Cassidy said following the win. “The guys want to win every night. They don’t want to say hey we’ve had a real good run let’s…it’s not our night, let’s get on to the next one. I think that’s a good, positive sign for us that we’ve got a bunch of gamers in there.”

This wasn’t the first time the Bruins have had to battle back in recent memory. They found themselves in another two-goal deficit against the Carolina Hurricanes just two nights prior. Yet, the result was the same.

Boston keeps finding ways to overcome obstacles and, as Charlie McAvoy noted, each time they do, the team becomes more confident.

“[We] went down two again, and it was kind of like, ‘We’ve been here before,’ and we kind of said it as a joke since it’s been about 48 hours since we were in that same exact position in the second period,” McAvoy said. “It’s just this team, you know. No one ever says die.”

The resiliency they have shown has been a microcosm of Boston’s season. Injuries and inconsistent scoring — outside of the potent top line of Brad Marchand, Bergeron and David Pastrnak — plagued the lineup through the first half of the season. But the team stayed afloat in the standings long enough until key players returned and are unquestionably the hottest team in the league.

The Bruins now sit in second place in the entire NHL with 91 points. There is a culture of togetherness that is tough to break and as long as the team keeps winning, no one seems to mind how the job gets done.

“We’re all very happy for one another. You know, when you look at teams that are good and make good runs, everyone is happy for each other and pushes each other,” Marchand said about the team’s mentality.

“You know, we’re just as happy if the defense scored or the forwards scored or the goalie scored. Doesn’t matter to us, as long as we win games. I mean when you have team success, everyone has success, so it goes hand in hand, and we just want to win. That’s all we’re about in here and doesn’t matter how we do it.”

The Bruins want to get off to a better start come Saturday against the lowly Ottawa Senators to close out their six-game homestand. Yet, the resilient bunch will take any win they can get at this point of the regular season, even if they have to come from behind.