The Bruins knotted their playoff series with a 4-2 win in Buffalo Tuesday night, and the tone flipped the moment Mark Kastelic and Logan Stanley squared off.
Marco Sturm's group came in trailing 1-0 after dropping the opener on Sunday. They answered with fists and forecheck.
Kastelic, Boston's fourth-line center, found a dance partner early in Stanley, the 6-foot-7 Sabres defenseman who doesn't lose many battles on size alone.
Both sides knew the series needed a reset. Buffalo had taken Game 1 by a 4-3 score at home, and the Bruins looked a step behind all night.
Not this time. Boston punched back literally and on the scoreboard.
Kastelic is carrying real momentum into this series. The 27-year-old racked up 3 goals in his last 5 games heading into the playoffs, playing heavier minutes than his fourth-line tag suggests.
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Marco Sturm finally gets the physical response he needed
Stanley brought size and a willing stick. He posted a plus-3 rating over his last 5 regular-season games and has been one of Lindy Ruff's quieter trusted pieces on the back end.
But neither guy drops the mitts for stats. This was a message. Boston refuses to be bullied in a second straight game.
Is a fourth-line scrap really what swings a playoff series? Sometimes, yes. The bench reacts. The bench wakes up.
The Bruins went 3-1 against Buffalo in the regular season, including two overtime wins, so the book on this matchup was always tight margins and short fuses.
Game 3 shifts to the TD Garden on Thursday with the series tied 1-1. Sturm's club gets home ice, a loud building, and a lineup that just remembered what it's supposed to look like.
Ruff will adjust. He always does. The real question is whether his top six can keep up when the Bruins decide the whistles don't matter and the game turns into a brutal, desperate, old-school grind.
Did Mark Kastelic win the fight against Logan Stanley last night?
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