Boston Bruins: Defending Champs Starting to Heat Up at the Perfect Time

With a 5-2 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning on Tuesday night, the Boston Bruins have won five of their last six games and are playing some fantastic hockey at the perfect time: right before the playoffs.

"It’s really big," said Bruins forward Brad Marchand of Tuesday's win. "We weren’t playing our best the past little while, and we seemed to have turned it around at the right time."

"You want to play your best hockey going into the playoffs, you just can’t flip a switch and turn it on and start to play well. We’re doing a good job at responding right now."

While it may be easier in other sports, such as basketball, for veteran teams to just "flip the switch" and turn things around once the playoffs begin, in hockey that's not so easy. It's so important to carry some momentum and confidence into the postseason.

After a two-month period starting in January in which the Bruins played below-average hockey and had immense trouble winning consecutive games and scoring first, the Bruins have gotten back to their style of hockey over the last two weeks, which is strong defensive play and stellar goaltending from Tim Thomas.

Teams found it easy to score against the Bruins in the first nine games of the month, with Boston allowing four goals or more in six of those games. In their last six games, however, the Bruins haven't allowed more than two goals in a game.

The reason for the Bruins' success of late can be attributed to a number of things. For starters, Thomas is playing better in net right now and is giving the Bruins a chance to win every night over the last two weeks.

The third line of Benoit Pouliot, Chris Kelly and Brian Rolston has been really impressive during the last six games. Pouliot has seven points in his last five games and Rolston is on a seven-game point streak.

The Bruins defensemen have also risen their play over the last six games and are not committing the costly turnovers or making the foolish mistakes that plagued the team during their early-March malaise. 

There's a better level of composure and patience in the Bruins game right now, and not only are they returning to their "Big and Bad" style of play, they are making smart decisions all over the ice.

The forecheck is strong, the defensemen are picking the right situations to pinch and join the attack—overall, there is just a confident feel to this team.

"I think, we’re playing a lot with confidence, which is big," said Marchand. "We just needed to skate a lot more and play within the system. Everyone is forechecking hard and backchecking hard and playing physical and that’s what we need."

When the Senators passed them in the division standings earlier this month, the Bruins woke up and realized their play wasn't good enough, especially from a team that is good enough to win another championship.

To their credit, the Bruins have righted the ship and once again are looking like one of the most dangerous teams in hockey.

All quotes obtained firsthand

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Nicholas Goss is a Boston Bruins Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report and was the organization's on-site reporter for the 2011 Stanley Cup Finals in Boston.