Boston – – The Boston Bruins won the 2023 Winter Classic. They got an exciting 2-1 comeback win at Fenway Park. Jake DeBrusk was there to clean up the garbage and secure the win. Taylor Hall did the heavy lifting with some great dekes and backup goalie, Casey DeSmith, who replaced Tristian Jarry earlier in the game bit and the rest was history.DeBrusk scored the last two goals of the game. This was yet another comeback win for the Bruins who haven’t lost at home this season (19-0-3) now including a baseball stadium.
Pittsburgh’s Kasperi Kapanen scored the game’s first goal at 8:40 of the first period and that held up until early in the third. The Bruins are used to this. They are battle tested.
Boston’s Charlie McAvoy said it best on TNT postgame.
“This is by far the coolest thing I’ve ever done. This blows the door of everything. I don’t want to go to the locker room. I want to stay on the ice as long as I can.”
The feeling in this city and in the media room is this Bruins team is on a run. The difference between this team’s run and the New Jersey Devils is the fact that this team has Stanley Cup winners in Brad Marchand, Patrice Bergeron, and many others. They have a pedigree. They have a mix of young and old and head coach, Jim Montgomery keeps them loose. Montgomery talked about a lot of baseball in his pressers rather than worrying about the two points in this game and in the end, they got them.
The Penguins did what they could to hold off the Bruins and play the kind of defense Mike Sullivan demands.
“I’m still a believer that defense wins. That’s the challenge as coaches to send that message to the players and the team. I’ve yet to see a team score their way to a championship. You have to score goals without a doubt but you have to be difficult to play against and keep the puck out of your net and your stingy defensively. I think that’s an essential part of winning in this league consistently but also winning championships.”
When you do that outdoors sometimes the results don’t equal the effort. The Penguins do look like a playoff team but they don’t look like a team who can beat the Bruins. Honestly, maybe four teams in hockey can beat the Bruins in a seven-game series.
Winter Classic wins can fuel a team. It’s like winning a series because of the effort and focus that gets placed on that one eventful game. This game was entertaining and it was a battle. The Bruins won the battle and now they will continue their assault against the league. After 37 games, they’ve lost only four of them. That’s it. I’m not suggesting they won’t have challenges later this season. They will. But they will get stronger at the trading deadline. This makes them the favorite to hoist Lord Stanley this June.
