An eventful day for Bruins started with a 4-hour bus ride and ended with an OT win

Boston Bruins

“Those are the games we’ll talk about after our careers and stuff like that are done.”

Tuesday stood as a blast from the past for David Pastrnak and his Bruins teammates — for all the wrong reasons.

Life in the NHL is spent adhering to a frantic 82-game schedule, with chartered flights and five-star hotel stays woven into the itinerary to maximize rest and curtail time spent in transit. 

It’s a far cry from the youth-hockey circuit and even those daunting campaigns in the AHL, where road games are often charted through plodding bus rides down the Eastern seaboard. 

For Pastrnak — who started his pro career playing in Providence — Tuesday’s commute felt more akin to a trek to Allentown or Hershey than a back-to-back slate in the NHL ranks. 

“Honestly, it’s been a while more like to Europe when back when I play in Sweden, there was long rides always like this,” Pastrnak said of Boston’s four-plus-hour drive back to Boston on Tuesday morning.

Boston was already destined to have tired legs on Tuesday night for their home game against the Nashville Predators — less than 24 hours after they came up short against the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden. 

The swath of brutal weather that rocked most of the U.S. over the weekend didn’t make it any easier for Marco Sturm’s team. 

After leaving Manhattan with a 4-3 overtime loss, their scheduled flight home late on Monday night was canceled due to the still unfavorable conditions, with the team heading back to their hotel in hopes of better news in the morning. 

With multiple flights still grounded and a game on Causeway Street set for Tuesday night, the Bruins received an early morning wake-up call — with three buses taking the team from New York back to the Boston area. 

There was no movie or on-board entertainment to make the snow-swept drive any easier — nor was one sought out for a weary Bruins roster. 

“Boys were pretty tired,” Pastrnak said of the ride. “It’s an early bus. Obviously, it’s tough to fall asleep after the game. … Everybody tried to get as much rest and and peace and quiet as we could. Not much energy.”

With puck drop set for 7:00 at TD Garden, the Bruins made it back to Hanscom Field in Bedford to retrieve their cars — buried under nearly two feet of snow. 

The Bruins didn’t have to break out their shovels after getting off the bus, however, as Boston’s skating and skills coach John McLean cleared all the snow and ice off the team’s various cars before their arrival. 

“We owe him a couple beers,” Morgan Geekie said. “And then our chefs came out to the airport as well to give us some pre-game [meals]. “So like I said, it takes a village. And everybody stepped up today, no matter how it was.”

As unorthodox as Tuesday’s travel itinerary was, the Bruins didn’t let it derail them from capturing two points against Nashville. 

Despite coughing up a third-period lead for the second-straight game, the Bruins got back in the win column via a 3-2 overtime victory over the Predators, with Pastrnak lighting the lamp just 15 seconds into the extra period. 

“It was not ideal, obviously,” Pastrnak said of the eventful 24 hours. “It was a long day. Yeah, it was tough. But that’s what makes the win special, the way we grinded it out and did it together as a group.” 

More rest will be prescribed on Wednesday for the Bruins, who have won 11 of their last 14 games and are now six points clear of any of the teams below them as the final wild-card club in the Eastern Conference. 

‘When you’re kind of faced with adversity, a little bit like that — it’s easy to kind of throw in the towel and make some excuses,” Geekie said. “But I think it just speaks to the character of the group that we know nothing’s going to come easy, and we’re ready to battle through adversity, whatever that may be.

“Those are the games we’ll talk about after our careers and stuff like that are done. So it’s nice to get the two points.”

 

Conor Ryan is a staff writer covering the Bruins, Celtics, Patriots, and Red Sox for Boston.com, a role he has held since 2023.

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