By: Declan Flavin | Follow me on Twitter / X @FlavinDeclan
The Winter Olympic break helped give most of the Boston Bruins’ roster rest and recovery, which was more needed than anyone realizes. A player like Pavel Zacha especially needed the time off given his recent injury history, and the forward unit as a whole needed a break from all the up-tempo forechecking.
However, the team will be returning from what will have been a 22-day break. For any team that will be difficult, but especially for units fairly new to a system of the modern-day game.
Will the Bruins Have Their Skating Legs Soon Enough?
During a late-December slump, the Bruins struggled to find their skating legs and get back to the physical part of their game. It showed that the team still struggles sporadically with the way they’ve had to play night in and night out.
However, just before the Olympic break, players were consistently hammering the details on the forechecking side of things. It’s very much a situation in which a team went into a break hot and just hopes they can re-center on the same details before the playoff push buries them.
In a big way, you should almost hope the Bruins concentrate specifically on playing the right way in the first few games, almost to a fault. It’s a sprint out of the gate to get things going, but the first few steps can involve a little stumble in order to reassess how players need to direct their efforts.
What can be two wins out of the gate with poor habits can quickly turn into a mid-second-half slump that the team will quickly regret. Persistent effort in second-period puck battles and box-outs in front of the net will pay dividends sooner than trying to cheat the game after a long rest.
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