Bruins ‘having fun,’ learning lessons while climbing back near the top of NHL standings

BOSTON -- The chants rang out at TD Garden on Saturday night.

Not “We want the Cup,” though surely the Boston Bruins faithful are starting to wonder if that might be a possibility this season. But “We want 10,” a reference to the nine goals scored by the Bruins against the Montreal Canadiens in a game that was not only a throwback on the scoreboard but also behind the bench, where Jim Montgomery and his coaching staff donned Starter jackets on a night the team honored the 1986-2000 era of the Bruins.

Ultimately, the Bruins did not get their 10th goal -- which would have been their first time in double digits since Oct. 16, 1988 – but had 16 players get a point in a 9-4 win over the Canadiens. It was their fourth straight win, bringing them to 28-8-9 this season, one point off the NHL-leading Vancouver Canucks.

One week after having lost three straight.

“There’s still a long way to go and, yeah, it can always go whatever way, but as long as we work at it, we learn from it, we’re enjoying it. We’re having fun,” Bruins forward Charlie Coyle said. “It’s fun to work through the little rough patches, too. There’s going to be more of them. It’s not always going to go perfect here.

“It’s only going to help us down the road. As long as we learn from it.”

In 2022-23, their record-setting season, the Bruins never had “rough patches.” They barely lost, dropping 12 games in a 65-win season. They lost three straight games exactly once. These Bruins have done that twice in the past month.

But, Coyle posited, maybe it’s for the best.

“That was the only time I could think of [that we faced adversity],” Coyle said. “Every other time we lost, it was like, we were going to win the next four. This seems more normal. It’s more normal this way. You just use it.

“It’s only going to help us. That’s what we keep saying. I think that’s the mindset to have.”

And now, they’re on an upswing.

The Bruins had come out of the NHL’s holiday break on a mission. They had lost four straight games and five of six in a season that started with stunning promise, given the losses -- Patrice Bergeron, David Krejci to retirement -- the team had sustained in the offseason.

They promptly won their next four.

But the following week, they set out on a four-game road trip that took them through Colorado, Arizona, Las Vegas and St. Louis, a trip that started out with three losses, each coming in overtime or the shootout.

Starting against the Vegas Golden Knights, even though they lost, Montgomery could sense a shift.

“We started hanging onto pucks,” Montgomery said. “We didn’t create a lot of chances, but we spent time there. St. Louis is where it really popped.”

The Bruins beat the St. Louis Blues in overtime, 4-3, then have only gotten stronger this week in wins against the New Jersey Devils, 3-0, Colorado Avalanche, 5-2, and the Canadiens.

“Coming out of the break there, we really wanted to make sure we had, not a reset, but it seemed like we were getting frustrated as a team and not playing consistently the way we want to play,” forward James van Riemsdyk said. “So I think we made a conscious effort from the team and the coaches and management as far as harping on the important things. I think we really got back to that as far as playing good fundamentally within the systems we’re trying to play.

“I think we got back to that and we’ve been fairly consistent, it feels like, over this last month now. So we’ve got to keep that going, keep building on that.”

They have been able to take steps offensively, with a Saturday that involved just about every active player. Other than defenseman Derek Forbort, who played for the first time since Dec. 3, forward Matthew Poitras, who last played Jan. 9, and goalie Linus Ullmark, who can’t entirely be left out of the points conversation, every member of the Bruins tallied at least one point.

Danton Heinen had three.

The forward, who was brought in on a professional tryout and not signed until Oct. 30 scored the first hat trick of his career, the second straight game in which the Bruins had a hat trick after David Pastrnak did the same on Thursday.

“I think it talks about the evolution of our team actually growing offensively,” Montgomery said. “I don’t think we ever envisioned having a night like this, and over the course of 82 games there’s some outliers, but I thought that we’ve been seeing this coming here for four games. We’re hanging onto pucks, we’re hanging onto pucks, we end up with high Grade A chances.”

It was far from perfect. There were defensive lapses, as the Canadiens scored four of their own. The Bruins led 5-4 heading into the third period, before scoring four unanswered goals.

At the same time, there’s growth. There’s learning. There are lessons that didn’t have to be taught in 2022-23 and which may have cost the Bruins in the end, when they were stunned in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs by the Florida Panthers.

This is not last season. There is no security blanket, no line of Brad Marchand-Bergeron-Pastrnak to fall back on. Even with a record that has been at or near the top of the NHL all season, the Bruins are still a work in progress.

But, it appears, that work is paying off.