It was notable that, heading into Game 5, there was no panic from the team. There was no worry. There was only calm, only anticipation, only readiness to return to the ice. There was only a sense of wanting to be better, of knowing they could be better, of knowing they had to be better.
They were, from the start. The Bruins played the solid, structured defense they had shown all season. They played as a unit, from the stars like Pastrnak and goalie Jeremy Swayman to the new entrants into the lineup in Alex Steeves, Michael Eyssimont and Henri Jokiharju.
“We couldn’t wait to get out there today, actually,” Sturm said. “Guys were dialed in. Our mindset was just there. That’s why for some reason there was no panic after they scored early. … Guys came ready to play. We just had the right mindset.”
They didn’t give up.
They played toe-to-toe with the Sabres, with a KeyBank Center crowd thirsting for a series clincher on home ice, with a Sabres team that took an early lead, at 3:35 of the first period on the power play on a goal by Rasmus Dahlin, a lead that easily could have sunk the Bruins.
They didn’t fold. And so the Bruins were still right there as the game got late and the pressure swapped places and the score remained tied at overtime. They were right there, when Pastrnak jumped on the ice and had yet another mind-meld with Lindholm and made the move and put the Bruins season on his stick.
Asked about that pressure, Pastrnak said, “You are 100 percent right. I do put a lot of pressure on myself. I’ve been through a lot in my career. Use it as a motivation and at the same time, sometimes it can be a little heavy. But I’ve been through some tough moments, so always bring myself back to the details and the little things. At the end of the day, I just want to play well.”
It was not the first time Lindholm-to-Pastrnak had saved the Bruins. It was Lindholm who sent a pass off the end boards to Pastrnak for the overtime game-winner in Game 7 of the first round against the Toronto Maple Leafs two years ago. As Pastrnak quipped, “We are neighbors, so we always call it the neighbor connection.”
It’s more than that, and it starts with Pastrnak, someone Lindholm called “a special player.”
“When the lights get the brightest, I think he has the most fun and that’s contagious throughout all of us,” said Swayman, who continued as the Bruins’ best player in the series, making 24 of 25 saves. “I know it’s helped me a lot and it’s helped a lot of Bruins that’s come through the locker room. It’s a pleasure watching him perform.”
By the end of the night, the white towels had stopped waving, the “Swayman” chants had ceased, as both teams left the ice, with another game on the horizon.
There had been no guarantee it would get this far, not after that Game 4. But Game 5 was a different Bruins team, a more familiar Bruins team, a team that sent a message to its fans through word and deed on Tuesday: That was not us. This is us.
“We stepped up in big moments and played with raw emotion,” Swayman said. “Guys were selling out their bodies and really understanding every play was important. I thought that was pretty contagious throughout the whole night.”
So, the series is heading back to Boston.
The Bruins are still down, still faced with another must-win game, still one mistake away from a summer vacation. But they picked themselves up, they returned to the basics, and they found a way to win.
“That was all our focus, to get the series back to Boston, to show our fans we’re not going to quit,” Pastrnak told NESN. “We never quit. We didn’t quit the whole season. We love each other. We’re going to battle ’til the last drop. We all know what happened last game at home. We wanted to bring it back.”
