BOSTON — To have a shot, they have to stop giving up so many shots.
If the Boston Bruins could reproduce Thursday night’s defensive effort over and over, they’d be a near-lock for the playoffs.
For a team that has been giving up too many shots against this season, the Bruins tightened that facet of their game up considerably against the Winnipeg Jets at TD Garden, holding the Manitobians to just 23 shots in a relatively smooth 6-1 victory.
“We kept them on the outside and won our battles when it was time to win,” said defenseman Jonathan Aspirot, who popped in his third goal of the season with less than two minutes to play. “We helped each other win those battles.”
Now having won 14 of their last 15 games on home ice, Boston turned in one of its better all around efforts of the 2025-26 season. They got goals from six different players — with newcomer Lukas Reichel scoring the game-winner in his first game wearing Black-and-Gold. Goalie Jeremy Swayman finished with 22 saves and was helped by his offensive mates, who scored the night’s first four goals. They rebounded nicely from back-to-back overtime losses on the road while playing for the third time in four nights.
Most importantly, they limited the looks that Winnipeg got on Swayman.
That’s what has to continue.
Less than a month remains in the NHL’s regular season, and Boston is skating a fine line between qualifying for the playoffs and falling short. by the width of a skate blade.
Boston’s win combined with Detroit’s victory over Montreal, meant that all three Atlantic Division teams are tied with 84 points. Les Habitants currently hold the tiebreaker, having played one less game than their two foes, and sit in third place in the Atlantic; the Bruins and Red Wings currently take up the East’s two wild card spots.
But nothing is set in stone, not with four weeks of regular season hockey still to play. Columbus has been red hot since former Bruins bench boss Rick Bowness took over and won again Thursday, leapfrogging the Islanders (both teams have 83 points) for third in the Metropolitan Division. Ottawa, and to a lesser degree Washington and Philadelphia, remain in the postseason hunt.
For any of these teams to still be playing in late April, obstacles that have hindered each from reaching their true potential needs to be ironed out tout suite if they’re to be assured of a playoff invitation.
For the Bruins, that means limiting the amount of shots against.
Currently third-to-last in the NHL, they have surrendered 29.8 shots per game on average. The Bruins had allowed 215 goals on 2,057 shots against, with an average of 3.07 pucks going into their net.
If you break it down by period, the Black-and-Gold have given up 591 first period shots, which isn’t bad at all (21st in the league). But the Boston defense has been victimized regularly in the middle stanza, where their foes have ripped 734 shots on net, tied with the circuit’s last place team, Vancouver, for the worst mark.
It hasn’t been much better in the third period (670 shots against, 4th worst) or overtime (32 SA, 10th worst).
Jeremy Swayman has decent-but-not-spectacular numbers between the pipes: 27 wins, 2.73 GAA and a .907 save percentage while facing 1,319 shots on net. The Bruins are going to rely on him heavily down the stretch with his backup, Joonas Korpisalo (11 wins in 26 games, a ghastly 3.30 GAA and .891 save percentage) not cutting the mustard.
Offensively, Boston is 18th in total shots on goal taken (1,884) and 21st in average shots per game (27.3). After their five-goal romp over Jets, they’ve scored 15 more goals (230) than they’ve surrendered.
Still, they’ve given up 171 more shots than they’ve peppered enemy goaltenders with.
I suppose it’s more about quality than quantity … but doesn’t it stand to reason the more shots you attempt, the more chances you’ll have to, you know, put the puck in the other team’s net?
Amazingly, the Bruins are 25-11-5 in the 41 games they’ve been outshot, far better than when they’ve had the shot advantage (13-11-3). But is that the type of fire you continually want to play with, especially in last four weeks of the regular season, and keep praying you don’t get burned?
I don’t like those odds.
According to certain metrics, the Bruins have the league’s most difficult schedule the rest of the way. So it’s essential that they find a way to cut down on the number of shots they’ve given up, less they ultimately find themselves left out of the Stanley Cup playoffs for a second straight season.
More efforts like Thursday night’s will go a long way towards turning the odds back in their favor.
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Phil Stacey covers the Boston Bruins for CNHI Boston. Contact him at pstacey@salemnews.com and follow him on X @PhilStacey_SN