Ugly-but-spicy Game 2 loss should be galvanizing moment for Bruins
It truly did not matter if Bruins superstar David Pastrnak won or lost his fight with the Panthers’ Matthew Tkachuk in Game 2. It still doesn’t matter, actually.
Instead, the fact that he was willing to do it at all — with Pastrnak having 23 fewer fights in his NHL career compared to Tkachuk — and in what was a absolutely over game for the Bruins at 6-1, should mean the world to a Bruins club returning back to Boston with a 1-1 series tie.
Along with the five-goal deficit, as well Pastrnak’s six-plus year gap between NHL fights, Pastrnak had 11 million reasons not to drop the gloves with Tkachuk. A broken hand, a rough fall, or a concussion would’ve been lights out on both his season and the Bruins’ playoff run.
But after getting the go-ahead from his coach (something both guys deny happening though video says otherwise), Pastrnak showed that he was more than willing, and said as much following the loss.
“Well, I mean, you are in the game [and] it’s a lot of emotions,” Pastrnak said of taking on Tkachuk. “I’m not afraid of him, to be honest. I can take a punch. And I’d do anything for these guys here.”
To hear that from your top talent? That means an awful lot, and the Bruins know it.
“It’s gonna be a series, and [know] what I’m really proud of? I’m proud of Pasta,” Bruins head coach Jim Montgomery said following the loss at Sunrise’s Amerant Bank Arena. “Because there’s so many guys out there pushing after whistle and the linesman are there [but] Pasta and Tkachuk, they just went out there and fought. That’s what you like. You like your hockey players to be competitors.”
It’s always entirely too easy, and perhaps encouraged, for a superstar to remain on the outskirts of the battle. It’s in the best interest of both their own wellbeing and that of the team. But if there’s a Bruin who is unable to follow Pastrnak’s lead and do what he did to show his teammates what he’s willing to do this time of year, then they simply shouldn’t have a stall in that dressing room.
But now it’s on the Bruins to truly make it mean something.
The fact that the Panthers essentially waited until Pat Maroon was hit with a misconduct — and for just words because this is the stupid world we live in now with overzealous officials who can’t manage a game even when they try to manage a game — to be the big bad wolves should not be lost on anybody in that room. (Maroon looked like one angry, angry man walking out of the B’s locker room Wednesday night in Sunrise. To the point where I gotta say, I was happier than usual to be out of his walking path.)
It also shouldn’t come as a shock to anybody in the Black and Gold dressing room. This has been a theme of pretty much every showdown with the Panthers in 2023-24: The Panthers are opportunistic noise-makers when it comes to the nastiness of playoff hockey, and pick their spots with the best of them. This was displayed when the Panthers wanted to rip Charlie McAvoy’s head off as revenge for his previous hit on Oliver Ekman-Larsson until McAvoy proved ready and willing to drop the gloves with any Panther who threw another cheap hit his way. It went down the same way when Brad Marchand finally snapped and dropped ’em with Niko Mikkola in a late-season matchup in Florida’s barn, too.
But Tkachuk, a star in his own right of course, deciding that Pastrnak was going to be his target and then throwing some extra shots on the way down (and, again, against what you would consider a non-fighter), should provide more than enough juice for the Bruins to ‘get up’ for a game in their building.
And the Tkachuk-Pastrnak incident isn’t the only thing that should put the B’s on alert entering Game 2. You also had Tkachuk punch B’s netminder Jeremy Swayman in the head on the first whistle of the game. (Only the Bruins were penalized on the scrum that followed.) You also had a third-period incident between Brad Marchand and Brandon Montour where Montour celebrated in Marchand’s face.
But if the Panthers truly want to play this way, this is something the Bruins are much more equipped to handle in 2024 than they were in 2023, and they’ve made as much known.
“I think we’re built a little different this year,” Marchand said following Game 2. “Probably in a better position to push back physically. You know, so when time presents itself, definitely [push back]. I mean, you can see that we’re a little bit bigger throughout the lineup and and more physical. So, but that’s what they bring every night, so we gotta keep going.”
And, fittingly, with the series shifting back to the always fight-friendly TD Garden.
