Boston Bruins: Bruins Can Clinch Playoff Spot with Win over Washington Capitals

The ninth-place Washington Capitals trail the Boston Bruins by nine points in the Eastern Conference standings and can gain no more than 10 with five games left on their schedule.

With Tuesday night’s mortifying loss to the Buffalo Sabres, which at least temporarily breaks the tie for the final playoff spot, Dale Hunter’s pupils ought to whip up a searing incentive to rebound when they visit TD Garden Thursday night.

On the other bench, Boston head coach Claude Julien could not ask for a more ideal challenge. If the Bruins can outlast the Capitals in regulation, overtime or a shootout, the last of the seven teams currently out of the playoff picture will be unable to catch them.

Granted, the Bruins’ own passport to the postseason is virtually inevitable and merely waiting for the ink to dry. But to clinch it at this point, under their own power and at the expense of this adversary will underscore Boston’s preparedness to start defending its Stanley Cup title.

Tuesday’s triumph over Tampa Bay, a team that is now one loss and one Buffalo victory away from elimination, amounted to the Bruins’ first set of three consecutive wins since late December. An equal amount of time has passed since they last claimed eight points in a row.

Even after two-plus months of incessant injuries, a crammed game schedule and a few cases of missing willpower, the Bruins barely spent a day outside of first place in the division and second in the conference. And they still have the NHL’s best cumulative scoring differential at plus-63, left over largely from their 23-3-1 surge through November and December and into the first week of January.

Over their last six games, a 5-1-0 run, they have outscored the opposition 23-10. That translates to a nightly median of 3.8 pucks behind the opposing stopper and only 1.67 in the Boston cage.

In that span, eight different forwards and two defensemen have pitched in multiple points, most notably trade deadline import Brian Rolston, who is on a seven-game production streak. Linemates Chris Kelly and Benoit Pouliot are each sizzling with him, something that they have not done much of since, well, November and December.

Meanwhile, goaltender Tim Thomas recently attained his first shutout in a little more than three months with an 8-0 whitewash of Toronto last Monday. In each of his last five full-length appearances, he has authorized no more than two opposing goals. Four of his last five single-night save percentages have been .926 or better.

Thomas’ cumulative stat line since a 3-2 shootout victory over Philadelphia swiftly restored the Bruins’ position in first place: 4-1-0 with a 1.57 goals-against average and a .938 save percentage.

Some of these recent statistical trends, particularly those of the goaltender and the third forward line, are not likely hold up to quite this standard for the long run. But they do not need to as long as Boston makes a point of continuously flexing its offensive and defensive depth.

That was what the Bruins did for two months to rapidly recover from their hangover-induced 3-7-0 run in October. It was what they fell short of doing in January, February and early March.

But now, on the cusp of the second season, they are performing in a manner that perfectly justifies their stature in the standings. And for their sixth-to-last game of the regular season, they will meet a timely test of killer instinct against the Capitals, the very last whimpering threat to their mere inclusion in the playoffs.