Bruins shut down high-powered Canucks with defensive layers
The Boston Bruins shut out the first-place Vancouver Canucks Thursday night, holding the team with the second-most goals in the NHL to a goose egg and 17 shots.
How did they do it? Layahs. Sorry. Layers.
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Boston out-shot Vancouver 25-17 in a 4-0 win at TD Garden, but what stood out more is what the Bruins did in their own end. The Canucks got their breakouts and zone entries, but couldn’t get much going beyond that. The Bruins blocked 16 shots and allowed just five total rebound attempts, and goaltender Linus Ullmark was sharp when he needed to be in his seventh career shutout.
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The Bruins went into Thursday’s game knowing they needed to combat the Canucks’ downhill speed, and they decided to execute a sort of bend-but-don’t-break approach. They made it challenging, and ultimately impossible, for the Canucks to break the walls down.
“We got above them, kept them in front of us,” said head coach Jim Montgomery. “Any time a team has to go through you to go to your net, it makes it a lot harder to generate offense.”
The best evidence of the Bruins’ tight defensive effort: Canucks defenseman Quinn Hughes, a top Norris (and possibly Hart) Trophy candidate with 64 points in 50 games, led the Canucks with three shot attempts blocked. Hughes was effectively neutralized whenever he crossed into the Bruins’ half of the ice.
It was an impressive night for the Bruins, and a much-needed bounceback after arguably their worst game of the season against the Calgary Flames. And it was nice to see it happen against literally the league’s best team.
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Matt Dolloff is a writer and podcaster for 985TheSportsHub.com. Any opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of 98.5 The Sports Hub, Beasley Media Group, or any subsidiaries. Check out all of Matt’s content.
Bruins issue disappointing update on Matt Poitras
Dec 2, 2023; Toronto, Ontario, CAN; Boston Bruins forward Mathew Poitras (51) pursues the play against the Toronto Maple Leafs in the second period at Scotiabank Arena. (Dan Hamilton/USA TODAY Sports)
In what was a ‘call his shot’ type of summer and training camp for the 2022 second-round pick, Poitras repeatedly said that he wanted to make it difficult for the Bruins to send him back to juniors. And he did exactly that from rookie camp through training camp, as Poitras became the first B’s forward to make the NHL roster out of training camp in an NHL-or-CHL situation since Tyler Seguin in 2010.
Poitras started off hot, too, and ensured that he was not going back to Guelph after nine games, with five goals and 11 points through 22 games.
Oct 30, 2023; Boston, Massachusetts, USA; Boston Bruins center Matthew Poitras (51) skates with the puck against the Florida Panthers during the first period at the TD Garden. (Brian Fluharty/USA TODAY Sports)
But as the physical toll and grind began to take its toll on Poitras, the Bruins began to implement more “load management” techniques. It started with the occasional healthy scratch here and there, and even graduated to the Bruins loaning Poitras to Team Canada for the 2024 World Juniors.
It also didn’t help that Poitras’ hot start put him on notice whenever teams saw the Bruins on their schedule. And Poitras took an absolute beating as his notoriety began to grow.
Whether it was an elbow, a stick, a forearm, or a glove, it seemed like Poitras took shot after shot after shot.
Of course, part of that is and was simply a result of Poitras’ DNA. A player who wanted to model his game after players like the Lightning’s Anthony Cirelli, Poitras continued to “stick his nose in there.” Even when he was taking an absolute pounding, Poitras remained smiling and told you he ‘loved’ that part of hockey.
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – OCTOBER 21: Matthew Poitras #51 of the Boston Bruins during warmups at Crypto.com Arena on October 21, 2023 in Los Angeles, California. (Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)
Still, it all began to add up.
In fact, Poitras absorbed 5.84 hits per 60 minutes of all-situation hockey in 2023-24. That was tops among all Bruins (minimum 400 minutes), and ranked 27th out of 348 forwards. Given his size, as well as the simple fact that Poitras was a teenager going against men, that rate was almost always bound to lead to some trouble.
But oddly enough, it appears that Poitras’ season-ender came on an attempted hit of his own, with Poitras bouncing off the Coyotes’ Sean Durzi and landing awkwardly on his shoulder in a Jan. 9 game in Arizona.
Matt Poitras went down the tunnel after this big collision with Sean Durzi#NHLBruins pic.twitter.com/w4o4Hc2mXE
— Hockey Daily 365 l NHL Highlights & News (@HockeyDaily365) January 10, 2024Poitras would exit that contest, and missed the four games that followed, but ultimately made his return to the lineup in the Black and Gold’s blowout victory over the Canadiens on Jan. 20.
It would be one of just three Poitras made before undergoing surgery on Wednesday.
Oct 30, 2023; Boston, Massachusetts, USA; Boston Bruins center Matthew Poitras (51) takes a shot against the Florida Panthers during the first period at the TD Garden. Mandatory Credit: Brian Fluharty-USA TODAY Sports
As for the surgery itself, a ‘shoulder stabilization’ procedure is something somewhat familiar to the Bruins, as both Matt Grzelcyk and Charlie McAvoy underwent a form of it in 2022. (The same surgeon who operated on Poitras also operated on both Grzelcyk and McAvoy in 2022.)
And as noted, the five-month recovery timeline almost guarantees that Poitras will miss the remainder of the 2023-24 season. Even if Poitras were to jump the timeline by a month, that would be right in the thick of the Stanley Cup Playoffs (maybe even the Final itself), and the Bruins definitely wouldn’t want to throw him into that kind of environment after such an invasive procedure.
In action for 33 games this year, Poitras will finish his regular season with five goals and 15 points, and if there’s any good news about his absence, it’s that the 33-game sample will not count as a full year of service for Poitras, meaning that Poitras is not closer to ‘UFA’ status.
