With Back-to-Back Wins, Bruins Carrying Positives Into Holiday Break

They certainly weren’t the two prettiest wins, but for a Bruins team struggling to put victories together, they will take them any way they can get them.

With wins in back-to-back games, the Bruins are heading into the three-day break with a bit of momentum on their side.

The B’s are now off until Saturday night when they travel to Columbus to take on the Blue Jackets. With wins hard to come by, victories in two straight could be huge for the Black and Gold moving forward as they look to climb up the Eastern Conference standings and get themselves back into a comfortable playoff spot.

“Yeah, it’s huge for us,” defenseman Kevan Miller said. “We were trying to put some wins together before break and trying to get on a roll here and it’s a good feeling for sure.”

After a lackluster overtime win over the Buffalo Sabres Sunday night, the Bruins came out much better Tuesday night against the Nashville Predators. Although some concerning trends occurred in the win, the victory was still an encouraging sign for Claude Julien’s Bruins.

“It was good. That third period stretch where we played on our heels, we can look at that, or we can look at the probably 50 minutes that I thought we played pretty well, seeing them play with a good purpose and some strong plays, our feet were moving, making good passes,” Julien stated. “I didn’t mind our game tonight.”

Wins over the Buffalo Sabres and Nashville Predators won’t get your names engraved on the Stanley Cup, but it’s a step in the right direction for a Bruins team looking to put wins together.

“It means that, you know, we can relax and have a nice couple days,” center David Krejci said of the win. “But, if we want to be in the race for the playoffs we have to put some wins together. Lots of teams can win one game and then they lose, or two games and they lose one. Somehow we have to find a way to put some wins together and that’s how were going to catch the other teams.”

Another positive for the Bruins heading into the break is the play of Loui Eriksson. After his two-goal game against the Predators, the former Dallas Star now his eight points in his last six games (five goals, three assists).

The trio of Chris Kelly, Carl Soderberg and Eriksson have been the Bruins best of late.

“Our line has been really good since we’ve started playing again with Kells [Chris Kelly] and Carl [Soderberg]. Getting chances, like I said, and scoring goals,” added Eriksson.
“Yeah we have to keep doing that. We’re getting plenty of ice time. If we keep playing like we’ve been doing we’re going to continue scoring goals.”

To go along with their back-to-back wins the Bruins have scored power play goals in consecutive games after failing to score a single power play goal in five straight games.

As a guy who sees a good amount of time on the Bruins’ power play, Brad Marchand is happy to see pucks starting to finally go in on the power play.

”Well I think the puck movement has been good and guys have been winning races to loose pucks, and that’s huge. When you’re able to keep the play alive in the offensive zone then you get a lot more opportunities I think,” Marchand said.

“On the second power play unit we’ve had so many guys in our lineup on that one. We’re able to build a little chemistry right now and figure out some plays that we can make, so I thought we had a better… a few better opportunities tonight, you know, scored a goal and that’s what we need. We’ve got to be able to step up at the right times.”

Two straight wins and two straight games with a power play goal is nothing to write home about, but the Bruins are in a position where any type of positive is a good thing.

“We got plenty of hockey left,” said Miller. “We just like I said take these wins and kind of roll with them.”

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