Takeaways: Bruins regroup to down Red Wings

The Boston Bruins entered the Christmas break losers of four straight. After Sunday’s showing against the Detroit Red Wings, they’ll enter 2024 with a three-game win streak.

Their last game of 2023 featured heated tensions, scrappy post-whistle scrums, timely goals and multiple head-scratching calls from the officials. Yet, the Bruins, playing their second game of a back-to-back, persevered through a chippy contest.

An aggressive Trent Frederic set the tone with Boston’s first two tallies, beginning with a brilliant backhanded feed off David Pastrnak’s lengthy flip pass from the opposing blue-line late in the opening frame.

Nearly 10 minutes after Frederic’s second marker, Jake Walman and Ben Chariot notched tallies 3:11 apart to tie things up. The latter tally came under scrutiny after a conversation between the officials and the NHL situation room in Toronto confirmed Chariot’s seventh of the season even as Michael Rassmussen’s stick made contact with Jeremy Swayman’s glove hand.

The review didn’t rattle the Bruins. In fact, the stopgap ultimately helped them regroup for the final 20 minutes and change.

Eventually, the Bruins returned to their forechecking philosophy and never looked back. 

Charlie Coyle put Boston ahead for good 3:52 into the third.

The Bruins added more insurance after a tripped-up Jake DeBrusk managed to score one of the two empty netters.

DeBrusk committed a trip of his own 31 seconds after notching his second marker in as many nights. The Red Wings quickly cut Boston’s lead to 4-3 just 39 ticks into the de facto 6-on-4 power play, with J.T. Compher pouncing on a second-effort play around the net front.

The Bruins kept Detroit in check once more in the final seconds. Alas, they secured their 5-3 win at 19:36 of the final stanza after Pavel Zacha fired a long-distance shot at the empty cage for his ninth goal of the year.

Here’s what we learned from a chippy New Year’s Eve tilt in the Motor City.

Boston’s performance trended back upward following lengthy interference review. 

Swayman immediately expressed his frustrations at the officials on his second goal allowed. He had thought Rasmussen’s stick altered his path at stopping Chariot’s shot.

Jim Montgomery took a look as Chariot went through the goal line. Within a minute, he signaled for a challenge.

The two officials for the night, Wes McCauley and Francis Charron, conferenced with the NHL Situation Room for more than five minutes. The goal stood after Charron announced that the contact occurred outside the blue paint.

Later, the NHL revealed that Brandon Carlo’s stick prompted Rasmussen to make contact with Swayman. Either way, the verdict wasn’t consistent with Rule 69 of the NHL rulebook.

Yet, the Bruins took the time to refocus as they immediately faced another shorthanded situation. Against Detroit’s marquee weapons like Alex DeBrincat, Dylan Larkin and the recenlty signed Patrick Kane, Boston’s PK shined in a pivotal spot to keep the 2-2 tie intact heading into the second intermission.

“You know what? We didn’t feel we had anything to lose,” Montgomery told NESN’s Andy Brickley of the goalie interference challenge. “We did think it was goalie’s interference. The refs explained what the judgment was and what it wasn’t, but it also slowed the game down. We were trending the wrong way. It was like a long timeout because [the review] did take long, and it wasn’t an easy decision for them.”

The Bruins began trending upward in the third, overcoming some struggles at the dot along the way.

Coyle converts on set play following a rare faceoff win

For years, the Bruins relied on Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci to win important faceoff draws. Without their two franchise centermen, the Bruins struggled to replicate their prior years of success at the dot.

Coyle entered Boston’s tilt in 2023 as one of three Bruins with a success rate of over 50 percent at the dot. On Sunday, the Weymouth native only won four of 17 draws. As a whole, the Bruins lost 36 of their 53 faceoffs.

What they lacked in quantity, the Bruins made up for their faceoff mishaps in quality on the go-ahead goal early in the final frame. Coyle promptly cashed in on a set play, skating directly to the slot where he took a crisp feed from Charlie McAvoy to notch his 13th of the season.

“Win one draw and score a goal. I should do that more often,” Coyle told NESN’s Adam Pellerin. “That’s an area I need to be better at so we can play with the puck a little more.”

Coyle and McAvoy highlighted the sequence. DeBrusk and Brad Marchand did the dirty work, setting legal picks along the dot to free space for Coyle.

“Chuckie [McAvoy] comes down with it, and there’s some good picks by Marshy and J.D,” Coyle added. “I don’t think J.D. gets a point on it, but those subtle picks and movements doesn’t find the scoresheet. That’s so big, and we don’t score if not for those little things that the average person doesn’t see.”

While they may not have an eagle eye on the finer details of a given day, the everyday person around Boston surely witnesses the B’s recent success at closing out victories.

The Bruins established that elusive closer’s mentality.

A hiccup on Compher’s tally didn’t prevent the Bruins from closing out their 21st win of the season.

The Bruins quickly put the game out of reach in the final seconds on Zacha’s empty netter. In reality, they established healthy habits during shutdown time.

Montgonery’s club encountered their share of ill-timed mistakes and blunders in the final 20. They’ve relinquished seven leads during the third period, including two in back-to-back overtime losses against the Rangers and Wild at the beginning of their recent four-game skid.

In the past week, the Bruins established multi-goal advantages against the Sabres and Devils heading into the third. On Sunday, the Red Wings used “piss and vinegar” to work their way into six power-play attempts, including two in the third. 

The Bruins, however, didn’t cave in, regaining their composure from questionable calls and heated scrums to close out 2023 appropriately.

“Every game is kind of ramping up. The second half is always [a time] where teams know what they’re made of, and we know that the main goal is to win a Stanley Cup,” Swayman said to the media following his 25-save outing. “So we don’t care who we play or when we play them. We want to be piss and vinegar every time.”