One of the biggest surprises early this season has been the play of the Boston Bruins, a team most people had on the outside looking in when it comes to playoff projections, myself included.
Last season the Bruins struggled mightily compared to recent years and the combination of a weak blue line and an off year from Tuukka Rask led to them missing the playoffs for the second straight season.
Rask’s play was especially bad at the beginning of the season, however this year he has posted a stellar .945 save percentage and led the Bruins to a 10-6-0 record, with Rask himself at 10-1-0.
Their record so far, while promising, currently only has them in the wild card spot, but there’s a reason why the Bruins are turning heads.
Compared to last season, Boston is killing it in terms of controlling shot attempts, where they lead the league, and the quality of shots they get. By any measure of even strength performance, the Bruins have been among the best teams in the NHL.
In terms of special teams, while the Bruins’ power play has only executed at a rate of 13.5%, good for 24th in the NHL, they were lethal last season, so there’s reason to expect improvement in that area — even if they’re only generating the 23rd-most high danger chances, and 26th-most chances overall. We can reasonably expect a turn around there.
The Bruins’ penalty kill has been average at 83.6%, good for 12th in the NHL, and there’s room for improvement there, too, as they’re the 10th-best team at denying chances while down a man.
But the question remains: what has changed with the Bruins from last season that they’re all of a sudden back to contender-level performance after a slow decline into mediocrity?
Losing Loui Eriksson and replacing him with David Backes is a stylistic change, but on paper it isn’t a significant upgrade. Some of their best players are getting older with Zdeno Chara at 39, Patrice Bergeron at 31, and David Krejci at 30, so you would expect more decline than a boost from them.
It’s true that David Pastrnak and Ryan Spooner are more established than last season, with Pastrnak especially looking like a star player, but that’s not enough to cause this turnaround.
The big difference that I believe has changed the fortunes of the Bruins’ even strength play has been Claude Julien deciding to trust his younger defenders a lot more. The trio of Brandon Carlo (19 years old), Torey Krug (25 years old), and Colin Miller (24 years old) are second, third, and fifth respectively in average ice time per game on the team, and that’s a big improvement over Dennis Seidenberg and Kevan Miller in terms of puck movement.
Last season a lot of extra stress was put on Bergeron to make plays to win the puck and move it out of the defensive zone to compensate for a defence that couldn’t, but this season Krug, Miller, and Carlo are first, second, and third in possession-driving plays among Bruins defencemen.
Carlo especially has given Chara an outlet option that allows him to focus on what he’s best at: winning pucks and defending in the defensive zone, instead of being caught trying to skate the puck on legs that are betraying him. Consequently, Chara leads the Bruins in defensive zone loose puck recoveries (15.8), and defensive zone defensive plays (6.8) per 20 minutes.
So much in the NHL is about finding a balance to maximize every player’s talent, and it appears that Julien has found a very strong formula built around his younger talent.
