We are just two games away from the halfway mark of the Bruins’ season and their weakness is what we thought it would be.
They don’t have enough scoring.
Don’t get me wrong. There are some positives to latch onto with this team. The B’s just finished up their most successful month of the season, going 9-4-1 in December. By all appearances, the B’s have indeed righted the ship under Joe Sacco as they continue their three game road trip Thursday night at Madison Square Garden.
And their year-ending loss to the Washington Capitals was no cause for head-hanging, certainly not from the effort and compete departments. In fact, if you want to use that game as a measuring stick game considering they were going against the current top dog in the Eastern Conference, the performance was promising. Under Sacco, the B’s have tightened up their even-strength play and team defense, especially in the slot area. It’s helped them grind out wins.
But the loss in Washington also highlighted their chief problem. They are ranked 29th in goals per game average (2.62). In a closely linked developed, they are ranked 30th in the power play. But they are getting more offensive chances than their current station in the league stats indicate. According to Natural Stat Trick, they are 17th in the league in high danger chances with 318. Two slots behind the B’s are the Tampa Bay Lightning, who happen to lead the league in goals per game (3.94).
If the B’s had more high-end skill, they’d be getting enough chances.
It hasn’t helped that since November 12, they have been playing without Hampus Lindholm, who took a puck off the knee in the B’s win in St. Louis that night. Despite the B’s early season struggles, Lindholm was enjoying a good start, looking much more like the 2022-23 version of himself. In fact, he’d been installed on the top PP unit just the day before. That was an experiment that never got off the ground.
They’ve made some tweaks since then, the biggest one being the splitting up of Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak, putting their two best offensive players on different units for the Washington game. The B’s got two second period power plays and the second one was worse than the first, with the five-man units either staying too far on the perimeter or being forced to defend in their own end. Meanwhile, the Capitals scored on one of their two power plays and that was the game.
The B’s practiced at Chelsea Piers in Manhattan in preparation for their game against the struggling Rangers, who actually swept the B’s last year. Coach Joe Sacco said he’d not yet decided on the PP personnel for Thursday’s game but he’s well aware it’s a problem in need of a solution.
“Our power play has to be able to produce more, but also we have to create more momentum,” Sacco told reporters in New York. “We had swing going for a little while where we started to but it got away form us. So we have to be better in that area. Our 5-on-5 play, I feel like we’ve stabilized it for the most part. We always want to produce a little more offensively, but 5-on-5 has been stabilized. The PK, I know it’s given up some goals lately but I feel like that’s trending in the right direction. We’ve just got to get that power play going.”
So, how can they manufacture more goals? Almost halfway through the season, there are some spots in the lineup that can produce. Pastrnak leads the team in points but, with 13 goals, he’s on pace to finish with fewer than 30 goals for the first time since the Covid-shortened season of 2020-21. A drop-off for Pastrnak could have been predicted. Last year, when the B’s actually had more scoring potential up front with Jake DeBrusk, the B’s were top-heavy, with Pastrnak’s 110 points leading the B’s by 43 points and his 47 goals being 18 more than Marchand’s second place output. It stood to reason that teams were going to make it tougher on Pastrnak to beat them this year.
Meanwhile, Morgan Geekie pulled himself out of an early season funk. They need Trent Frederic to do the same. In Washington, Frederic’s third line did have it’s best game since Charlie Coyle was bumped up to the Marchand-Elias Lindholm, but they still need more from him.
When will it be time for one of the top three forward prospects in Providence to get another chance? While he didn’t play a perfect game, Fabian Lysell provided a spark when he was brought up for a game against Columbus. Matt Poitras, who started the season in Boston has been very good and productive over the last dozen games on the farm. And Georgii Merkulov, who got three games in Boston, keeps on producing.
Could one of those players not help, at least on the power play? If the power play, and the offense in general, keeps going at this rate, we’ll need to find out. Or else the B’s will need to look outside the organization.