The Bruins have had their fair share of “big games” this season, and often times they’ve dictated them to their liking with their desired balance of fighting and scoring. 

They came away with a huge 2-1 win over the Lightning Thursday (recap), but it was not one of those nights. 

There is no mistaking how the Bruins have dealt with being pestered. Some may choose to spray repellent, but this team has proven all year to prefer the fly-swatter route. You aggravate them, they challenge you — big and bad, no? 

It’s been seen throughout the season. When tensions are high and things get chippy, the gloves get dropped more often than not — and quite often at that. From Dec. 23 vs. the Thrashers to last month’s fight nights with the Stars and Canadiens, the Bruins like to resolve any tensions by engaging the opponent and heading off for five. 

They wanted to follow that formula again on Thursday, which was their biggest game of the year in terms of standings. With both Boston and Tampa Bay sitting at 81 points on the season, a chance at a two-point lead for second in the conference was on the line. The teams came prepared, motivated and emotional, and you usually know what that leads to in the case of the Bruins. 

Yet they ran into a club that that entered the game just 27th in major penalties on the season with 18. There weren’t many worthy adversaries when it came to dropping the mitts, as was the case when Shawn Thornton placed his gloves on the ice while Pavel Kubina remained behind an official in the second period.

The only way to get a Lightning team with no real “fighters” to dance was to get into a game of chippiness that would leave Boston shorthanded. That’s just what happened when the B’s were charged with both a Nathan Horton trip and a Milan Lucic roughing minor prior to Lucic’s fight with Eric Brewer in a 1-1 game. They learned the hard way that their invitation for a fight night was not accepted, and that they’d have to put up with high-energy, low fisticuffs play for three periods.

“That’s part of their game,” Brad Marchand said of the Lightning following the win. “They know they can’t beat us easily if they don’t get under guys’ skins and try to get them off their game. It was obviously a part of their game tonight.”

The B’s would go on to kill off the 5-on-3 in what coach Claude Julien called “the turning point” of the game.

“Our guys did an outstanding job on that 5-on-3, where our guys didn’t give them much,” Julien said following the game. “We were patient and we weren’t running around. … Even a couple times we didn’t get it out, and sometimes that will come back to haunt you, but we were able to preserve and kill that. I think right there and then, that gave us a lot of energy to bounce back and get back to our game.” 

After the Lucic fight in which he seemed to get the better of Brewer by virtue of a couple of lefts, the B’s played out the rest of the game in a style imperfectly suited to their fashion, but one in which they proved capable of playing successfully. 

They kept the big hits coming (Johnny Boychuk was perhaps the biggest contributor in that department thanks to a downright painful hip check on Nate Thompson and a crushing hit on Blair Jones) and stayed out of the box for the final 24:37 of the night.

“We know how they’re going to play,” Horton said, “but we have so many different players on our team that we can play any way.”

That they did, and in doing so, they placed more than a tiebreaker between themselves and Tampa for second place in the Eastern Conference. With 18 games left to play for both teams and no future games between the two (potential playoff meetings aside), it was a big one. 

“All year, seems like we end up lining up against teams right when they seem to be really big games as far as the standings go,” said Tim Thomas, who improved to 29-8-6 on the season. “That wasn’t our focus necessarily going into tonight’s game. It was to keep working toward playing good hockey, and the results will be there for you. So, we got the result we wanted, and I think we did a good job. We played a good game.”

This is a team that’s bound for the playoffs and expected to do big things once they’re there. As much as the fight nights have been to their advantage, they know that such contests don’t exist in the postseason, and that tolerance will be key. 

“They are a hard-working team. You have to be physical against those kind of guys there. They are not overly physical but they work really hard,” Dennis Seidenberg said. “There were some scrums, and that is what happens when the puck is there, just battle and that’s it.”