A little hate was good for the Bruins on Tuesday night

The Bruins entered Tuesday knowing that the Senators were not going to make it easy on them.

Far from the most talented team in the league, the Sens’ success will often be based on their ability to make their opponent uncomfortable. And when the temperature jumped more than a few degrees after a sleepy opening frame on the Boston bench, the Bruins found themselves more than willing to up the ante in a 3-2 victory.

“Those are the type of games we’re better in,” Bruins head coach Bruce Cassidy said of an emotional, high-energy game at TD Garden. “You gotta be able to play in them [and] be comfortable in them.”

“That’s the way we had to play,” Bergeron noted. “It’s not always about blowing guys up, but at least being physical, finishing checks, getting some momentum, and make it hard to play [against]. I think that’s what teams have done in the past, and you have to respond, and I think that was a good way of responding. I think we need more of that if you want to be successful and if you want to be consistent and create some energy and find ways in tied games like that.”

For the Bruins, the intensity was first dialed up when Charlie Coyle came out of the penalty box and decided to just run over Erik Brannstrom. This was moments after Coyle was whistled for a slash, and Coyle even drew a penalty on Ottawa about two seconds after steamrolling Brannstrom. Now, the Bruins didn’t do anything with that power-play opportunity, but it was the first sign that this team was more than willing to answer Ottawa’s antagonistic ways with a little nasty of their own.

“We got going after [the first period], brought some emotion,” Cassidy acknowledged. “We did find it and we needed it.”

The second period is really where this was on full display. You had David Pastrnak probably get away with a board on Thomas Chabot that opened the door for a scoring chance and you saw Connor Clifton drop the gloves with the Sens’ Alex Formenton after the two got tangled up behind the Boston net. And when Ottawa’s Josh Brown leveled Bruins forward Trent Frederic and knock him out of the game late in the second period, Charlie McAvoy picked his spot for some third-period retribution.

“They had a good hit, and Charlie McAvoy responded well,” Cassidy said. “[McAvoy] does a lot for us. We need a few other guys back there to sort of bring some of that too. It doesn’t have to be every night, but what we talk about in the room is when it’s your turn and there’s a hit in front of you, don’t turn it down.

“I think Charlie did a good job kind of evening things up in that regard.”

Now the challenge for the Bruins (or any team) comes maintaining that level of intensity. In an 82-game season, it’s just impossible to expect McAvoy to deliver those kind of checks and find himself upright by the year’s end. It has to be a collective, and where players like Anon Blidh and Nick Foligno, both of whom could be back in action as soon as Thursday, can shine.

“Different guys in the lineup have to bring that [intensity],” Cassidy said. “We’ll have to identify that, look at that closer as a staff [with] how we can get certain guys to push through in those situations.”

But no matter the player that night, it’s the kind of recipe that seems to help bring the best out of the Bruins as a unit.

Here are some other thoughts and notes from a 3-2 final at TD Garden…

• Natural born killers

  Share

  Probably a bit easier when you're not facing a power-play grouping with names like Matthews, Marner, and Tavares, but it was a damn good bounce-back night for the Boston penalty kill, which went a perfect 6-for-6 by the night's end. 
  
  “Clears were a little better than the other night, what hurt us in Toronto [and] timely save at the end," Cassidy said of his PK. "I liked our compete level on the puck, we didn’t allow them easy set-up time and for the most part, limited the danger shots.”
  
  One moment that stuck out: Up 1-0 in the first period, the Senators opted to call a timeout with a few seconds left on a 4-on-3 advantage, likely to both get on the same page and see if they could maybe squeeze another chance out of it. The latter did not happen, as Bergeron won the faceoff and had another two takeaways to deny a chance on Jeremy Swayman. 
  
  "Lots of good reads, communication," Bergeron said of the team's success down a man. "I thought we were pretty aggressive tonight. If you get pressured hard and often [on the power play], it's hard to really get the looks that you want. I thought tonight that we denied that, but we were also compact at times that they had full control, and we got the saves we needed."
  
  "It usually comes down to do you get the clear when you’re tired and do you stick to your structure when you’re fatigued? And I thought we did a good job with that," said Cassidy. 
  
  The 6-for-6 effort in the shorthanded game bumped the B's 2021-22 penalty-killing percentage up from 80 percent (up from 75.9 percent), and up from 21st in the league to 19th. Progress is progress.

• Taylor Hall demoted down lineup

  Share

  It was (largely) a night to forget for Bruins winger Taylor Hall.
  
  Guilty of a brutal own-zone turnover that helped put the Senators on the board just 74 seconds into Tuesday's game, Hall was also whistled for an offensive-zone hooking in the third period of a one-goal game, and found himself flipped down the Boston left-wing depth chart for Jake DeBrusk with the B's protecting their lead. 
  
  "It’s just winning hockey," Cassidy said of Hall's move down the lineup. "You want to play late in games you’ve got to play winning hockey. Doesn’t matter who you are on the team and [Hall] got away from that."
  
  Want the good news within that? Jake DeBrusk, whose game absolutely bottomed out last year, is now in a place where the Bruins trust him to help protect a late lead in what felt like a must-win scenario for the B's. 

• Cassidy joins elite club of Bruins coaches

  Share

  A solid milestone for Bruins head coach Bruce Cassidy in this one. With the 3-2 victory over the Sens, Cassidy has now won 200 games behind the Boston bench. He joins a club featuring Don Cherry, Gerry Cheevers, Claude Julien, Art Ross, and Milt Schmidt. Maybe some bonus points for doing it against Cassidy's hometown Senators, though it's worth mentioning that they obviously did not exist when he was growing up in Ottawa, which (along with Bobby Orr) led to Cassidy rooting for the Bruins. 

Click here for 98.5 The Sports Hub’s complete coverage of the Bruins.

Ty Anderson is a writer and columnist for 985TheSportsHub.com. Any opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of 98.5 The Sports Hub, Beasley Media Group, or any subsidiaries. Yell at him on Twitter: @_TyAnderson.