BOSTON -- The Bruins continue to be the hottest team in the NHL, even if they don’t hold the longest actual winning streak in the league at this point.
What they do have is one of the longest point streaks in franchise history, as they engineered a comeback in an eventual 4-3 overtime win over the Carolina Hurricanes at TD Garden on Tuesday night. It marked their 17th game in a row with at least a point, and leaves the Bruins without a loss in regulation since the middle of January.
The 17-game point streak is now tied for the third longest in B’s franchise history with only a 23-game point streak in 1940-41 and an 18-game point streak (1968-69, 2017-18) better than this winter’s streak of good hockey.
"The feeling in here is that we’re ready for whatever comes at us. We need to worry about our next shift and bring our best foot forward, and the chips will fall where they may," said David Backes, who registered a first period fight with Michael Ferland after the Canes forward took Marcus Johansson out of the game with a massive hit along the side boards.
"With the group of guys, binding together, picking each other up and sticking together, it’s fallen on the right side of the ledger more often than not. “Whether it’s all strung together or it’s four out of five, or whatever it needs to be, we’re giving ourselves a chance to win every night. We’re winning more often than not and it’s a good feeling in here."
BRUINS 4, HURRICANES 3 (OT)
It wasn’t the consistently great effort that we’ve seen out of the Bruins lately. They didn’t really start strong out of the gate in the first period, and actually fell behind by a 2-0 score before the Black and Gold finally starting digging themselves out. But once they did begin digging out many of the regular staples in the B’s point streak surfaced once again.
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The fourth line kicked in a goal that got the ball rolling on Chris Wagner’s rebound score, red-hot Jake DeBrusk scored the second goal, and then the Bruins special teams got involved with a Patrice Bergeron shorthanded goal in the third period. Jaroslav Halak wasn’t great in the game, but he was just good enough to allow the Bruins' offense to generate the game-winner in OT when Jake DeBrusk fed a puck to David Krejci for the two points.
Needless to say, confidence is high with the B’s right now.
“It’s good. Obviously, I think it’s what 17 now? Yeah, it’s always a good sign, it’s always a good measuring stick as well. We played against some very good teams throughout that stretch. We believe in ourselves,” said DeBrusk, who has scored eight goals and 15 points in his last 10 games. “We always have, but it’s nice to get results and especially this time of year when every point matters.
“I think we have, what, 16 games left, I think it’s when each team is playing intense. Carolina played a great game tonight and they’re hard to play against, and our next opponent will be as well.”
It remains to be seen if the Bruins can continue to bottle this up and bring it into the postseason as well, but they’re going to keep winning and pushing forward to see how much longer they can their current point streak going.
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