( Photo Credit: Maddie Meyer / Getty Images )

By: Declan Flavin | Follow me on Twitter / X @FlavinDeclan

Dating back to the era of Zdeno Chara, Patrice Bergeron, and Brad Marchand, the level of engagement within the Boston Bruins’ roster from game to game has always been a fascinating study. If the team comes out slow and plays half-heartedly, it almost always leads to a reflection of the roster itself over time, and the 82-game schedule’s sporadic buy-in issues never truly get addressed, at least not from a fan’s perspective.

Well, Tuesday night’s 3-0 home victory against the Detroit Red Wings reminded both fans and the organization what keeps this team engaged from the opening puck drop, provided the core players make it a point of emphasis. A certain first- period checklist item had team members even raving about it postgame, pointing to the sheer impact it makes on the group…

An Early Hit from Charlie McAvoy or David Pastrnak

“…Everyone was committed to playing a hard game, and it got us going from the start,” Pavel Zacha said of David Pastrnak’s early physicality last night, via WEEI’s Tom Carroll. It still counts coming from the team’s bottom-six forwards, but there has never been a time when the star players have thrown an early hit and it hasn’t sparked a distinctive energy.

There’s clearly been tone-setting hits on the big stage from McAvoy, including his hit on Matthew Tkachuk in Game 4 of the 2022–2023 playoffs, or even more recently the hit on Connor McDavid with Team USA in the Four Nations Faceoff. Players see these moments and almost instinctively expect the game to be played a certain way, in a way that aligns with how this season’s group wants to play.

It essentially takes that first critical step toward the nightly identity of an up-tempo, capable forecheck, and from that point the bottom of the lineup can take care of the rest, as odd as that sounds. Did you ever imagine Sean Kuraly carrying that kind of impact on the game simply because he sees his star teammates buying in with an early hit?

It goes to show how much a nuance like this matters, especially given how intricately the physical battle is played nowadays. This will be relying on the health of the team’s leadership for how often it can be executed, but when the group shows any signs of abandoning habits, head coach Marco Sturm needs to make it a priority.