Bruins keep ‘focus’ to hold off Wild in battle for playoff position

BOSTON -- There were less than seven minutes left in the third period when it could have all gone awry. The Boston Bruins, twice owners of three-goal leads against the Minnesota Wild, had seen their advantage shaved to one on a rebound goal by Ryan Hartman.

But they didn’t crumble. They didn’t break.

There was an insurance goal by Pavel Zacha and then another by Elias Lindholm, two more points added to their season total, a spot in the Stanley Cup Playoffs coming ever more into focus.

“We have to win these games,” Zacha said. “Every game is important. Now we have, again, back-to-back big game tomorrow. That’s something you have to refocus and just win as many as we can. We have a good enough team to make the playoffs. We just have to show it every night.”

It was a week that could have been make or break for the Bruins, starting with a game on March 21 against the Detroit Red Wings at Little Caesars Arena, followed by one on Wednesday against the Buffalo Sabres at KeyBank Center, and then Saturday against the Wild at TD Garden.

All three, crucial games against teams either in or fighting to be in the playoffs. All wins, including the 6-3 victory against the Wild on Saturday that gave them a little tighter grip on the first wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference, three points ahead of the Columbus Blue Jackets, and also kept them within two points of the third-place Montreal Canadiens in the Atlantic Division.

“You can look at the standings, that’s going to make you focus up and [be] dialed in,” David Pastrnak said. “Every single play matters now, especially as the games keep coming in and we’re getting to single digit numbers now for the rest of the year.”

Not that they could celebrate for long, with a quick plane ride out after the game, as they headed for yet another game with massive playoff implications, facing the Blue Jackets at Nationwide Arena on Sunday (5 p.m. ET; FDSNOH, NESN, SNP, SNW, SNO).

“I think you have to just take a peek at the standings and you should be ready to go,” Viktor Arvidsson said. “It’s so tight and the East is a race right now. We’ve got to just focus on our job and win our games.”

That’s exactly what they’ve done – with the exception of their 4-2 loss at home on Tuesday to the playing-out-the-string Toronto Maple Leafs – with 12 of a possible 16 points in their past eight games, having gone 5-1-2, as they’ve pulled closer to a postseason spot after a one-year absence from the playoffs.

“It felt good,” coach Marco Sturm said of the win against the Wild. “It felt good for 60 minutes. It felt good, our first shift, right away.”

Boston “is playing for their lives,” Wild defenseman Brock Faber said. “They’re always a hard team to play against. Ever since I’ve been part of the Wild, (Boston) seems so big, fast and physical, especially when they’re fighting for their lives. That’s a hard team to play against. We definitely could’ve played better, but at the end of the day they out-played us and they deserve that win.”

The Bruins have gotten here riding the production of players of which this was expected – and those of which it was not.

There was Pastrnak, adding two assists to his total and extending his point streak to 12 games, now sitting in sixth place in the NHL in scoring with 92 points (29 goals, 63 assists) in 68 games after getting 20 points (seven goals, 13 assists) during the run. But there also was Zacha, who scored twice, including the goal at 16:50 of the third period that pushed the Bruins lead back to two, and who now has 10 points (seven goals, three assists) in his past seven games, including the overtime winner Wednesday against the Sabres.

Zacha has 56 points, which includes a career-high 26 goals, and is only three points from tying his career high in points, which he set two seasons ago. He has been part of one of the most surprisingly productive lines in hockey, teaming with Arvidsson (one goal, one assist on Saturday) and Casey Mittelstadt (three assists), all players cast off by teams in the not-too-distant past.

“They’ve been a great line the whole year,” Pastrnak said. “Every time they are on, it makes it so much easier for the rest of the group to follow up. When they have nights like this, not many nights we come up short.”

It’s exactly what they’ll need in their last nine games in the regular season.

On Tuesday, general manager Don Sweeney made a statement when he said, “We believe we’re a playoff team.”

The Bruins got significantly closer to that on Saturday. It was a good day in the standings for Boston, which not only picked up the two points against the Wild, but watched most of their main competition in the wild card race – the Ottawa Senators, Pittsburgh Penguins, Detroit Red Wings and Blue Jackets – fall in regulation.

But nothing is won, nothing is assured, especially not with the schedule the Bruins have down the stretch, including six road games in their last nine and six games against current playoff teams (Blue Jackets twice, Dallas Stars, Tampa Bay Lightning twice, and Carolina Hurricanes).

“It’s going to be a tough, tough stretch here, a lot of road games,” Arvidsson said. “We’ve got to buckle up.”

NHL.com independent correspondent Joe McDonald contributed to this report.