The Bruins had already made this a successful Western trip by beating St. Louis and Winnipeg. Sweeping the trip and beating an already-good Minnesota Wild team riding even higher after a blockbuster trade for Quinn Hughes would have just been the cherry on top.
So, the fact that Boston turned in a clunker Sunday night and lost 6-2 isn’t really something to panic over. Off nights happen. That said, there were a couple underlying concerns that bubbled to the surface. Specifically, the Bruins need to tighten up defensively, both at 5-on-5 and on the penalty kill.
Let’s start with the penalty kill, because that has been a strength for the Bruins most of the season, and it needs to be. It has slipped a bit since Thanksgiving, though, including on Sunday night, when the Wild scored on their first two power plays of the game as they built up their lead.
In their last eight games, the Bruins’ PK is now just 16-for-22 (72.7%). That is a notable dip from the 83.7% it was humming along at through the first 25 games of the season, a mark that was good enough to rank in the top 10 in the league. The Bruins have now slid to 16th, smack in the middle of the pack.
That’s still an improvement over last year, when they ranked 24th on the PK, but it might not be good enough if the Bruins are going to be a playoff team, which is certainly a realistic goal given how well they’ve positioned themselves through these first 33 games. Their formula for winning still doesn’t leave much margin for error, and being strong on both special teams units is pretty much a non-negotiable.
There isn’t really any single common theme when it comes to some of the goals the PK has allowed over the last couple weeks, but there was on Sunday. Both came off Minnesota zone entries with speed that came far too easy. On the second, the Wild actually ended up with a 2-on-0 after Brock Faber made Boston’s entry defense look like Swiss cheese.
“We didn’t do a good enough job today on our stand, on the PK stand,” Bruins coach Marco Sturm told NESN after the game. “They came with a lot of speed, and we just didn’t execute right.”
The Bruins’ 5-on-5 defense, meanwhile, hasn’t been a strength this season, but it was starting to trend in the right direction prior to Thanksgiving. In 12 games from Nov. 1 to Nov. 26, the Bruins held their opponent to one or zero 5-on-5 goals seven times, and held them under 10 high-danger chances eight times. In their eight games since Thanksgiving, the Bruins have allowed two or more 5-on-5 goals five times, and have given up 10 or more high-danger chances six times.
The number of quality chances the Bruins are allowing at 5-on-5 play is arguably the team’s single biggest red flag right now. According to Natural Stat Trick, they rank 28th in 5-on-5 high-danger chances allowed (12.44 per 60 minutes) and dead last in expected goals against (3.02 per 60).
On Sunday, similar to the PK, the problems came in transition defense. On the Wild’s second goal, scored by Kirill Kaprizov, the defense just sagged off too much as the Wild entered the zone, despite the fact that it was a 3-on-3 and not an odd-man rush. On the fourth, David Pastrnak didn’t pick up the always-dangerous Quinn Hughes as the trailer on the rush, and Hughes made the Bruins pay.
The Bruins’ goaltending, and Jeremy Swayman in particular, has covered up a lot of the defensive blemishes. According to MoneyPuck, Swayman has saved 19.4 goals above expected this season, third-best in the NHL.
A lot of the things Sturm and the Bruins needed to turn around after last season have turned around. Swayman, for one. Their fifth-ranked power play, for another. Until recently, the penalty kill was certainly in that group as well. The 5-on-5 scoring has been surprisingly good, too, ranking 11th in the NHL.
But 5-on-5 defense was supposed to be a lot better, too, and that hasn’t really happened yet. It will probably need to happen at some point if the Bruins really are going to hang around and be a playoff team this season.