BOSTON — The Bruins can clinch a playoff spot against the Lightning on Saturday with any kind of win, and they can still do it even if they lose, depending on how two other games finish. Boston entered the 12:30 p.m. game with Tampa Bay knowing the path to the postseason could be opened before the final horn.
That is the simple part. The harder part for the Bruins is the opponent. Tampa Bay came in with 102 points and third place in the Atlantic Division, still chasing Montreal and Buffalo in a race that has stayed tight to the end. The Lightning had three games left, were two points behind Montreal for second place and four points behind Buffalo for third, and needed points as badly as Boston needed a result.
The matchup was the final public preview of a series that had already tilted Tampa Bay’s way. The teams had met three times this season, and the Lightning had won all three, including a 3-1 victory in Tampa a week earlier. Jeremy Swayman had started two of those games for Boston, while Joonas Korpisalo started the other, a sign that the Bruins had already searched for answers in goal without finding one that changed the outcome.
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Marco Sturm was not turning to James Hagens for an NHL debut in this game. Sturm said he wanted to give Hagens more time to get acclimated to the Bruins’ system, a reminder that Boston is managing both the present tense of a playoff chase and the longer view of how it wants to build the roster. The Bruins do not have the luxury of sitting back to wait for the future, though. They play again tomorrow evening in Columbus, which leaves little time to recover if this afternoon turns into a draining one.
The clinching math also reaches beyond Boston and Tampa Bay. The Bruins could seal a postseason berth regardless of their own result if the New York Islanders beat the Ottawa Senators at 1 p.m. and the New Jersey Devils beat the Detroit Red Wings at 5 p.m. That is the friction in a late-season race: one team’s fate can be decided by what happens in arenas far away, with no control over the outcome once the puck drops.
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For Boston, that makes this game more than another stop on the schedule. For Tampa Bay, it is another chance to keep pressure on the teams above it and leave no doubt about where the Lightning belong in the standings. The standings may still move after this game ends, but Boston’s playoff picture could be clear long before then.
