After completing their annual California road trip, the Boston Bruins headed to the American Midwest to face the Chicago Blackhawks on Oct. 24. Although the Bruins’ schedule has not been very kind to them in terms of travel, they were energized in this contest, and beat the Blackhawks by a 3-0 final score to improve to a perfect 6-0-0 record. Overall, it was another strong game by the Bruins, and let’s go over three notable takeaways from the contest now.
Swayman Stands On His Head
It is not a secret that a significant amount of the Bruins’ success will be determined by their goaltending. So far, it has been nothing short of excellent during this young season, and Jeremy Swayman kept that trend going against the Blackhawks in this one. The Alaska native recorded a 23-save shutout against a hungry Blackhawks team. With this, he now has a 3-0-0 record, a 1.34 goals-against average (GAA), and a .957 save percentage (SV%) this campaign.
Bedard beat Swayman with a ridiculous slapshot in the first period, but Bruins head coach Jim Montgomery wisely called for an offside challenge. In the end, it was proved that the Blackhawks were offside, and from there, Swayman was lights out.
This was simply another great performance from Swayman. It is hard not to love what we are seeing from the young netminder so far this season, and it is hard to believe that he cannot keep this kind of play up moving forward. Keep in mind, he won the William M. Jennings Trophy last season with Linus Ullmark for a reason. The kid is the real deal and the future of the Bruins’ net.
Zacha Breaks the Ice
Pavel Zacha is a Bruin with extremely high expectations in 2023-24. With Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci retiring, he is now the club’s first-line center and is expected to be a key part of their offense because of it. So far this season, his offensive contributions have been fairly low. Yet, the 26-year-old finally got his first goal of the season against the Blackhawks after perfectly tipping in a Kevin Shattenkirk shot.
The Bruins will now be hoping that Zacha breaking the ice leads to more production from the 2015 sixth-overall pick. He showed last season that he can be a difference-maker offensively, and the truth can be seen in his stats. In 82 games last season for the Bruins, he had 21 goals and 57 points in 82 games.
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Overall, seeing a goal from Zacha was great, and it will be fun to see how he performs moving forward. He has been trending in the right direction as of late, too, as he has one goal and an assist over his last three games.
Poitras Continuing to Show He Belongs
After a team-carrying two-game goal performance against the Anaheim Ducks on Oct. 22, Matthew Poitras was naturally a player to watch against the Blackhawks. The 19-year-old center has been quite the surprise for the Bruins thus far, and he only helped his case of sticking with the team past his nine-game window with his performance against the Blackhawks.
The Bruins’ top prospect notably helped force a Corey Perry turnover, and he then blew by the veteran winger. From there, he got a short breakaway, made a nice deke, and fired it past Blackhawks goaltender Petr Mrazek. This kind of goal showed just how much skill and confidence Poitras has with the puck. This is exactly the kind of player that the Bruins need down the middle, and it is going to be fun to watch how much he improves as he continues to gain experience.
Overall, this was another great game for the Bruins. With that, they made some history, as this is only the second time in team history that they have started a season with a six-game winning streak. The first came back in 1937-38. Now, they will look to break the team record and win their seventh straight against the Ducks on Oct. 26.
