#boston-bruins

#boston-bruins

"It was fun. Those two guys are great players. It's pretty easy to play with them. It's easy to mix and match the lines on this team so I feel like anybody can play with anybody," said Kastelic after Monday's practice Warrior Ice Arena. "Early on, we just kind of clicked. We were all on the same page. We had a great game in my opinion. We controlled the play. I think we were in their zone more than they were in ours so that's a win for us. Hopefully we just continue to do that."

For the first time in his Bruins career, Joonas Korpisalo received the starting nod in back-to-back games earlier this week against the Islanders and Sabres. Marco Sturm's decision to alter Boston's goalie rotation came after a road bout on Monday where Jeremy Swayman and the Bruins were shredded by Ottawa, 7-2. While Boston's head coach downplayed discourse over Korpisalo's increased reps, the timing was worth noting after Swayman labored on the road in a lopsided loss.

The Bruins may not be a great hockey team. We still don't know if they're even very good at all. But they can be an entertaining, if unconventional, watch right now. The B's, outshot 40-23 and held in the game by Joonas Korpisalo, coughed up a two-goal third period lead but pulled it out in overtime, beating the Buffalo Sabres 4-3 on Marat Khusnutdinov's OT goal, his first tally of the season.

Our top guys were not the top guys again.

We are about to discover a lot more about just who these Bruins are. The B's will begin a short but, likely, telling three-game road Thursday night in Las Vegas against a Golden Knights team that many see as poised to break the Edmonton Oilers' two-year run to the Stanley Cup Final. And if the Golden Knights can't do it, the B's opponent Saturday night, the Colorado Avalanche, have a good shot at it.

The B's had some brutal puck management issues to start the game that would contribute to a 2-0 deficit. Jake Guentzel created two turnovers that led to both goals. On the first one, the high-scoring winger picked Charlie McAvoy's pocket at the Boston blue line and the Bolts went on a quick counter-attack that resulted in an Anthony Cirelli tap-in off a Gage Goncalves pass just 1:09 into the game, Cirelli's first of two in the period.

The Bruins played their most dominant period of the season in the opening 20 minutes, outshooting the Sabres 17-2 - it felt like it was even more lopsided - but they managed just a 1-0 lead. The goal came on their 14th shot of the period at 15:48 and for the second time in as many games, it was the second line that gave the B's the first lead of the game.

Nothing will hold as much weight over the Bruins and their fortunes this season than whether or not Jeremy Swayman can regain his form as one of the top young goalies in the league. If the Bruins are going to be a competitive squad under Sturm, they're going to need to be a gritty, grind-it-out club that pummels opponents on the forecheck, capitalizes on special teams - and relies on their goaltending to keep them afloat in what should be plenty of one-goal games.