BOSTON — If most teams were put in the Bruins’ situation on Thursday at TD Garden, they would have checked in for a scheduled loss and moved on. But these Bruins are not most teams.
Fresh off a successful but arduous four-game trip to western Canada with one day off in between, the Bruins simply went to work soundly beat what should have been a desperate Buffalo Sabres team, 7-1. It was the Bruins' ninth straight win and, at 48-8-5, pushed them over the 100-point plateau, making them the fastest team ever to eclipse the century mark.
After a scoreless first period, the Bruins took a 2-0 lead with two quick goals in the second period.
They first took the lead on a power play, when Dmitry Orlov, making his Garden debut as a Bruin, sizzled a one-timer past Ukka-Pekka Luukkonen from the right circle, the defenseman’s sixth point in his last three games with the Bruins at 12:01.
Just 1:26 later, Orlov picked up his seventh point with a secondary assist on Jakob Lauko’s second NHL gal. Orlov’s D-to-D pass to Brandon Carlo was a little ahead of Carlo, who chased the puck down and flipped an off-balance shot that Luukkonen stopped with his right pad. It provided a room-service bounce for the Lauko, who popped an easy one home.
But the Bruins would lose another left wing in the second period, and a rather important one. With Taylor Hall and Nick Foligno already out for the foreseeable future, Brad Marchand suffered a lower body injury when he took a hit from Ilya Lyubushkin that could have easily been called boarding but was let go. He did not return.
In the third, the Czech line gave the Bruins a three-goal bulge with Pavel Zacha finishing it off with his 16th of the year.
Then $90 million man David Pastrnak, stoned by Luukkonen on several great chances, notched his 43rd with an empty-netter.
Casey Mittelstadt broke up Jeremy Swayman’s shutout bid with 4:20 left, but on a penalty kill, Patrice Bergeron scored another empty-netter from 200 feet away. Then, with Luukkonen back in, Connor Clifton scored the Bruins' second short-handed goal off a 2-on-1 pass from Garnet Hathaway. Before it was over, Lauko added his second of the game to complete the rout.
The Bruins made a trade on Thursday morning that screamed “all-in” for the NHL-leading Bruins. But then the unfortunate reason for why they had to make it was revealed.
The Bruins announced Thursday morning that they had obtained rugged left wing Tyler Bertuzzi from the Detroit Red Wings for a 2024 first-round pick that is top-10 protected and a 2025 fourth-round pick. Bertuzzi, 28, has 4-10-14 totals in 29 games for the Wings this year but has scored more then 25 goals three times in his career and and had a career-high 30 in 60 games last year. The Wings will retain 50% of his $4.75 million salary. He is a pending UFA.
But the Bruins will be without two of their left shot forwards for the foreseeable future. Taylor Hall was placed on long-term injured reserve and Foligno was placed on regular injured reserve, both with lower body injuries. GM Don Sweeney said there’s no timeline on either one of the veterans and that surgery has not been ruled out in either case, though that’s not currently the plan.
Hall was injured in Saturday’s game in Vancouver and Foligno was hurt in Tuesday’s game in Calgary. Sweeney said that the Bertuzzi acquisition “became a priority.”
“In both Taylor and Nicky’s injury situations, yeah, it took a real unfortunate turn for us,” said Sweeney. “There’s no timeline for either of those players in terms of when they’re going to be available to us. We’re just leaving that in the medical staff’s hands to make the best judgment moving forward. But it’s definitely a situation for us that we felt we had to fill a hole because we just don’t have a timeline at this point and that’s what we had to protect. We have to bring in a player that we feel could really help us. It’s unfortunate we don’t have a timeline. We’re continuing to get some studies and allowing the medical staff to get the best determination for those two individual players. But unfortunately, the news we got was a little bit discouraging. But those guys will work hard and hopefully give themselves a chance and this team is in a decent spot to take care of business.”
Sweeney said it is unlikely Foligno or Hall would be available for the rest of the regular season. It had to be a tough blow for both players, but especially Foligno. After a disappointing first year with the B’s, he was having a terrific bounce-back season as a leader of the club’s bottom six forward group. Hall, meanwhile, was providing decent depth scoring on the third line, even if the production numbers had tailed off in the last couple of months.
But they did add some more snarl in Bertuzzi.
“Ideally, we believe the interior play there where he generally scores his goals will be an advantage to us and where we’re going in the playoffs,” said Sweeney. “He’s a player we’ve watched extensively. He’s motivated, he hasn’t had the opportunity to play in the playoffs and he’ll be eager to complement our group.”
Coach Jim Montgomery was certainly pleased.
“I think he’s an excellent hockey player. He’s someone that understands how to win. He’s done it at the junior level, he was MVP of the Calder Cup championship team in Grand Rapids,” said Montgomery. “He’s a great complimentary winger. He goes hard to hard areas. He’s a great net-front guy, 5-on-5, power play. He’s got a lot of sandpaper, as Bruins fans know with his altercation with our other sandpaper guy (Brad Marchand).”
Bertuzzi and Marchand have gotten into it with each other after the whistle on more than one occasion, but the Bruins' alternate captain will no doubt welcome him into the locker room
“He has that playoff style. He plays very, very hard. He’s skilled, he’s gritty, he gets inside. He hasn’t won in the NHL but he won the Calder Cup and was the MVP of that, so he shows up big when it matters,” Marchand said. “He’s just one of those guys you hate to play against. Come playoff time, it’s huge to have guys like that in the room. The extra depth he brings to the room is incredible. He can play anywhere in the lineup.”
Even with the injuries, the Bruins should be in good shape with the additions of Garnet Hathaway, Dmitry Orlov and now Bertuzzi. Marchand gave kudos to management.
“They’ve obviously shown that they have a ton of faith and they’ve had that all-in approach with the moves that they’ve made with how they want to improve the group with the depth that they’ve added. They did their job and we have to do ours now,” said Marchand.
Bertuzzi made some news last season when he declined to get vaccinated against COVID, which prevented him from playing in Canada. Whatever his status is now, he has been cleared to play north of the border. He played back-to-back games in Ottawa last week.
