Bruins are on a steady course

Don’t let these last two games before the three-week Olympic break affect your referendum on the Boston Bruins.

The news out of practice that neither Elias Lindholm nor Pavel Zacha accompanied the team to Tampa for Sunday night’s Stadium Series game against the Lightning at Raymond James Stadium (6:30 pm ET, ESPN2, 98.5 The Sports Hub) should not move the gauge on expectations for a playoff finish.

Florida is having an unseasonably chilly week, which should bode well for Sunday night’s Stadium Series game between the Bruins and the Lightning, but the windy afternoon last year on which the Bruins dedicated their bronze bear over the entry to the O’Neill Tunnel was the kind of cold that had attendees Wayne Cashman and Willie O’Ree remembering their Canadian youth. Steve Babineau photo

If two of the Bruins’ top three centermen cannot play Sunday – Coach Marco Sturm classified Lindholm and Zacha as “day to day” – it obviously lessens the chance for two points against a first-place Tampa Bay team that is 8-1-1 in its last 10, and a loss would leave a little dent in a feel-good .609 points percentage that has the Bruins honest-to-goodness among the Eastern Conference playoff eight. But it won’t alter their course.

Neither would a subsequent loss down in Sunrise vs. nemesis Florida, old pal Brad Marchand and awakening monster Matthew Tkachuk (2 goals on Thursday). The 28-22-3=59 Panthers, who sit eight points behind the Bruins (32-20-3=67) in the Eastern Conference wild-card race, play one of their two games in hand tonight at home against a Winnipeg team that has scraped itself off the carpet just in time to avoid a first-to-worst regular season.

The motivation is high on both sides, but the Panthers need Wednesday’s game more than the Bruins.

Even without the great Sasha Barkov, the two-time defending Stanley Cup champions remain a proud bunch and no doubt have laid the final two out to the players as an opportunity to close the gap, send a message and keep the Bruins (or another wild-card team) within range.

Whatever else, the Panthers have belief, and that makes them a tough out no matter what history says about the challenge they face in an attempt to become the salary-cap era’s first to three-peat. Just three-peating their appearance in the Cup final after full seasons is already an accomplishment the NHL hasn’t seen since the 1984-85 Edmonton Oilers, who accomplished the feat when the regular season put virtually no pressure on contenders until they used the month of March as a playoffs training camp.

What the Panthers have accomplished is monumental, but there is no sports uniform that has ever held the power to overrule the reality of wear and tear. If there are more championships in the nucleus that GM Bill Zito put together in 2022, it won’t come to fruition in 2026.

What will come to fruition for the Bruins in 2026?

I’ve seen several comparisons made between this year’s Bruins team and last year’s. Any such comparisons need to take into account the following factors: 1. Charlie McAvoy and Hampus Lindholm are having normal seasons; 2. Jeremy Swayman had a training camp and has been a solid starter because of it; 3. Sturm has had a fair opportunity to figure out what he has and deploy it most effectively (remember, Jim Montgomery got the axe at 8-9-3; Sturm was 3-6-0 after nine games … Sturm sat Mason Lohrei for 6 games and switched Zacha with Casey Mittelstadt to get the Czech into the middle of the game, as had Montgomery a year earlier).

Since then, the across-the-board buy-in has combined with Sturm’s early-season adjustments to allow a quiet but linear growth of the Bruins into a team greater than the sum of its parts.

The Bruins play an aggressive but layered defensive game that has a home for all of their players, be he a strong skater like Marat Khustnudinov or a handsy thinker like Mittelstadt. The primary result of the emerging teamwork has been a better-on-average start and a major cutback on odd-man rushes against. The secondary result has been a more-potent counterattack feeding into secondary scoring.

The Bruins are a good hockey team, and they’re probably headed to the playoffs.

What should they do about it?

There has been debate as to whether the Bruins should sell off expiring contracts at the trade deadline (like Viktor Arvidsson’s or Andrew Peeke’s) or even becoming buyers should an acquisition come with term. Had former Calgary defenseman Rasmus Andersson been willing to extend, he reportedly would have become a Bruin instead of a Golden Knight. Right-shot defenseman is the kind of acquisition that interests the Bruins, one that addresses a need they cannot farm up in the near future and, at the same time, promises to stick around. Though the Vancouver Canucks are ready to sell and rebuild, Filip Hronek reportedly doesn’t want go anywhere.

The good news for the Bruins is there is no urgency to make such an acquisition right now, and they certainly won’t rent. The program is to farm up prospects primarily skating in the NCAA, and over the next few years build a younger forward group with intentions to grow into Stanley Cup contention.

In the meantime, the Bruins have momentum. The pathway toward contention is rarely linear, but they are in a good place. Given that last fact, it’s highly unlikely that management would take backward steps. They believe that learning to win is an essential part of the process. So enjoy this season.

If you happen to be in Tampa this weekend for the festivities, the two grass parking lots outside Raymond James will feature a fan-fest throughout the afternoon, and fans may gather at Lot D to welcome the Bruins and Lightning when their buses arrive for the game at approximately 3:30 and 4:00 pm.

Finally, if Zacha or Elias Lindholm is held out of Sunday’s game, I hope it becomes an occasion to get Mikey Eyssimont in the Boston lineup. If he doesn’t find his way into uniform for this game, then the former Lightning forward henceforth becomes the one move you can count on the Bruins making at this deadline.