3 Stars: A new hero emerges for Bruins – 98.5 The Sports Hub

The Bruins will always aim for more than breaking even.

But on a trip like the one the Bruins just embarked on — beginning in California last Wednesday before Wednesday’s finale in New York — breaking .500 may have been the best realistic result for Marco Sturm‘s squad. And they made sure they ended it with a bang, too, as the Bruins got themselves back in the win column and at 2-2-0 on the trip with a 3-1 final over the Islanders.

The Bruins made their shots and saves count in this one, too, as the Bruins won despite being outshot by a 45-to-14 mark. That minus-31 shot differential was Boston’s largest in a win since being outshot 57-to-20 in an overtime win over the Flames back on Feb. 28, 2023.

Here’s a look at the 985TheSportsHub.com 3 Stars of the game…

The Bruins are asking a lot out of defenseman Jonathan Aspirot. Down Jordan Harris and Charlie McAvoy, the Bruins are asking Aspirot to be a full-time NHLer. Something he’s never done before. They’re also asking the left-shot defender to do while playing the right side. Oh, and if all that wasn’t enough, they’ve now bumped him up to their top pairing opposite Nikita Zadorov.

But he hasn’t let ’em down yet, and Wednesday night on Long Island may have been one of his best performances to date for the Bruins.

Deployed for a career-high 20:45, Aspirot was on the ice for all three of Boston’s goals in this contest, and had a takeaway to his name. It might not be stuff that’ll make your eyes pop when looking at a box score, but with a player like Aspirot, that’s what you want to hear more often than not. And in this one, Aspirot did what he did best for the B’s, closing with quickness and simply grinding the opposite down out of high-quality scoring looks.

The Bruins also controlled shot attempts at a 17-11 clip with Aspirot on the ice at five-on-five play, which was the best mark among all Bruins despite beginning the majority of his shifts in the defensive zone.

A career-high 44 saves for Bruins netminder Jeremy Swayman and he’s not the first star of the game!? I know, I know. But the good news for Swayman (and the Bruins) in this one was that it was probably about as clean of a 44-save performance as it could’ve been for the 27-year-old goalie.

And it somehow got better even as his night ended. At the final horn, the scorekeepers had Swayman at 39 saves. 10 minutes later, it was at 42. And then another 10 minutes after that, it was at 44.

No matter how you slice it, it was another fantastic performance from Swayman. And that’s been the case for the majority of this season. Hell, if you go by these stories alone, Swayman is now the first Bruins player to hit double-digit honors on our ‘3 Stars’ postgame tracker here on the dot com.

The best part of Swayman’s night came late, with a 23-for-23 third period.

At the U.S. Thanksgiving mark of the season, there’s been no shortage of unexpected heroes for Sturm’s Bruins. And on Wednesday night, another emerged, as Alex Steeves put forth the first multi-goal effort of his NHL career in the victory. Now, neither one of his goals held as the game-winning (that honor instead went to Tanner Jeannot and his second-period marker), both of Steeves’ goals were the kind of timely goals this Bruins team needs.

For example, his first period marker came less than two minutes after Mat Barzal opened things up with an Islander goal, and came on the Black and Gold’s first shot of the evening. And his third period shorthanded goal was not just Boston’s first shorthanded goal of the season (boy do they miss Brad Marchand there), but was also an absolute deflater for New York.