Bruins end losing streak with signs of something to build on

BOSTON -- There has been little excitement around the Boston Bruins of late, not since the NHL Trade Deadline, when five major pieces were shipped out in an acknowledgement that the team was not going to make the Stanley Cup Playoffs. They had lost 10 straight games heading into their matchup with the Carolina Hurricanes at TD Garden on Saturday, an 0-9-1 skid that had sunk them to last place in the Eastern Conference.

As David Pastrnak admitted, “It’s been a tough couple of weeks.”

On Saturday, though, there were glimmers of hope in a 5-1 win, even as the Bruins were officially eliminated from playoff contention for the first time since 2016.

Not only did Jeremy Swayman win his 100th career game, coming 55 seconds from a shutout, but Pastrnak hit 40 goals on the season with a five-point night, including his first career natural hat trick and two assists.

Alongside Boston’s current stars, though, was Fraser Minten. The 20-year-old center was called up from Providence of the American Hockey League on Saturday to make his Bruins debut. Minten, who was acquired before the NHL Trade Deadline on March 7 from the Toronto Maple Leafs for defenseman Brandon Carlo, is exactly what the Bruins need: a center with potential to add to a decidedly lackluster prospect pool.

“It was great, it was lots of fun,” Minten said. “It’s an unreal crowd out there, great rink to play in. So it was fun and getting the win was awesome.”

Minten, who was taken with the No. 38 pick in the 2022 NHL Draft, had played 19 previous NHL games, all for the Maple Leafs, four last season and 15 this season before the trade.

“I thought it was a good first game for him,” interim coach Joe Sacco said. “All of the things that came reported about him held true tonight. Steady game. I thought he won some key face-offs in the defensive zone on his off-side, which is not easy to do as a young player. … You can see that there’s a hockey sense in his game. He was on the right side of the puck quite a bit tonight.”

But he was not the only center who made an impression.

Elias Lindholm was elevated to the top line, playing between Pastrnak and Morgan Geekie. It was, in some ways, a back-to-the-future concept, with Lindholm having been expected to center Pastrnak at the start of the season. It never clicked.

Against the Hurricanes, though, there was a glimpse of what could be in future seasons, with the line generating five goals, the three by Pastrnak, and one each by Geekie and Lindholm. Geekie had four assists, Lindholm two.

“Overall game, 200-foot player who can make a play, who is really good on face-offs, smart player and obviously really good defensive player,” Pastrnak said of Lindholm. "He was around the net, it’s how he got a goal. He created the space for us. It [was] a fun game today and it’s been a while since it was enjoyable.”

With five points giving him 94 (40 goals, 54 assists), Pastrnak jumped into a tie for fourth in the NHL in points with Toronto's Mitch Marner. It’s his fourth straight 40-plus goal season and fifth in the past six years. It’s all the more notable because of the gap between him and the Bruins’ next-highest scoring player, Geekie, who has 50 points (28 goals, 22 assists).

Asked where they’d be without Pastrnak, Lindholm couldn’t hazard a guess.

“I don’t know,” Lindholm said. “I don’t know where we would be. But he has played some really good hockey for us, given us a chance most of the nights when we were in the mix. You look at, what does he have, 90-plus point and the next guy has 50? It’s pretty incredible to see what he can do out there. He’s a top player in the League, for sure.”

The Bruins have five games remaining in a season that had started with such promise and which has gone so awry, with a fired coach (Jim Montgomery), a dip to last place, the trading away of their captain and a handful of mainstays.

They are left looking forward, at what they can build for next season and beyond, on who might be in Boston to help them create the next iteration of the franchise. They are looking at Minten and Casey Mittelstadt, at Fabian Lysell and Marat Khusnutdinov, at a bounce-back year for Swayman and at whether Lindholm might actually be the answer to their void at No. 1 center.

And a win. They needed that too.

“A big weight was released from all of our shoulders,” Swayman said. “It’s a gratifying feeling to go through it and to finally get out of it and feel good about our game. It’s so good to see the Garden happy again. That’s a feeling that we’ve missed and it’s addicting, so we’re not going to let that happen again.”