A couple Saturdays ago, before an afternoon tilt against the Philadelphia Flyers, I asked Boston Bruins interim head coach Joe Sacco if his team was generating the kind of offensive chances that he wanted.
“We’re starting to generate, yeah,” he said. “We like the looks that we’re getting. We talk about high-danger chances a lot with our group, not giving them up on our end and then trying to create them down the opposite end. We’re starting to. We’re getting to the inside more. We’re getting some two-for-ones, some rebound chances, and that’s what we want to see more from our group.”
Sacco is far from the only NHL coach emphasizing the importance of high-danger chances to his team. Just about all of them are. It’s as buzzy of a buzzword as there is in hockey right now, and for good reason. Five-on-five high-danger chance percentage – how many high-danger chances you create vs. how many you give up – has proven to be a pretty good predictor of playoff success.
The high-danger or home plate area of the ice – basically the slot area inside the top of the circles and between the faceoff dots – is where goals get scored in the playoffs. The battles there are often where playoff series are decided, something the Bruins have learned the hard way in recent years.
So, is Sacco right that the Bruins are trending in the right direction when it comes to high-danger chances? Yes, he is. According to Natural Stat Trick, the Bruins have a high-danger share of 54.6% this season, which ranks fifth in the NHL. They are generating 10.60 high-danger chances per 60 minutes, which is middle of the pack at 15th, but they are only allowing 8.82, which is tied for second-fewest. The Bruins’ internal metrics likely differ a little from publicly available data, but probably not drastically.
Since Sacco took over for Jim Montgomery, there has been a noticeable improvement. The Bruins have gone from 10.14 high-danger chances per 60 minutes in 20 games under Montgomery (17th in the NHL) to 11.25 in 13 games under Sacco (10th). Their high-danger chances allowed have dropped from 9.68 under Montgomery (9th) to 7.59 under Sacco (1st).
Montgomery understood the importance of high-danger chances, too. He talked about them often. But he couldn’t get the Bruins to consistently create them. On his watch, the Bruins too often looked like they were seeking out the perfect pass to unlock that “inside ice.” Sacco’s Bruins have been more willing to take initial shots from the outside and then create their high-danger chances by fighting for rebounds, deflections and loose pucks – those two-for-one opportunities he mentioned.
Take the Bruins’ third-period comeback Tuesday in Calgary. On their first goal of the period, Mason Lohrei broke his stick on a shot from the point, but the puck still made its way to a pinching Andrew Peeke inside the right faceoff dot. His shot was saved, but Morgan Geekie was right there to bury the rebound. No perfect passes, but two quality scoring chances. On the second goal, Brad Marchand did make a great pass to set up Marc McLaughlin in the high slot. He heeled his first shot attempt, but kept fighting for the puck and wound up with a second great chance that he buried.
At the other end of the ice, the Bruins’ high-danger defense was not good enough early on. The Flames’ two goals early in the second period both came on the kind of slot shots that they have mostly done a good job taking away under Sacco. After that second goal and a timeout from Sacco, however, the Bruins allowed just one more high-danger chance the rest of regulation. According to Natural Stat Trick, they created 15 for themselves over the final two periods.
Tuesday marked the eighth time in 13 games under Sacco that the Bruins had more 5-on-5 high-danger chances than their opponent. They did that in just nine of 20 games under Montgomery. Recent history tells us that winning the high-danger battle on a consistent basis is pretty much a prerequisite for making a deep playoff run.
Each of the last 12 Stanley Cup Final participants ranked in the top half of the league in high-danger share that year. Eight of the 12 ranked in the top 10. Last year’s Bruins ranked 19th. Statistically, they never had a chance.
The other teams in the top 10 this season are pretty much a who’s who of Cup contenders. The four teams ahead of the Bruins are the Los Angeles Kings, Edmonton Oilers (Boston's opponent Thursday night), Carolina Hurricanes and Washington Capitals. The five teams right behind them are the Toronto Maple Leafs, New Jersey Devils, Tampa Bay Lightning, Dallas Stars and Florida Panthers. The Vancouver Canucks (22nd), Winnipeg Jets (24th) and Vegas Golden Knights (25th) stand out as teams that look good in the standings but who are flashing red danger signs (pun intended).
Now, I know what you’re thinking: I don’t care what these numbers say, the Bruins are not a Cup contender, or even a particularly good team. And you may be right. The Bruins’ inconsistency this season has been maddening. Those two losses in Winnipeg and Seattle last week were ugly.
But structurally, the Bruins at least have the makings of a team that might be capable of more. What they need is to finish more of the high-danger chances that they do create (they rank 25th in high-danger shooting percentage) and to get a lot more saves on the ones they allow (Jeremy Swayman ranks dead last in high-danger save percentage among 58 goalies who have played at least 10 games).
High-danger share has helped predict some postseason surprises before. The 2023 Panthers who upset the record-setting Bruins and reached the Cup Final barely squeaked into the playoffs, but ranked eighth in high-danger share. The 2021 Islanders finished fourth in their division, but upset the Penguins and Bruins and took the Cup-winning Lightning to seven games thanks in part to the fact that they were the third-best high-danger team that season. The 2020 Stars’ string of upsets to reach the Cup Final probably shouldn’t have been so surprising given that they were fifth-best in high-danger share. Same for the 2019 Blues, who were second-best. The Bruins ranked 13th that year, so maybe that Cup Final playing out the way it did should have been expected.
Those teams all looked flawed from the outside, but they all made a living winning battles on the inside. It is way, way too early to suggest that these Bruins could do what any of them did come the spring. But if they continue to consistently generate more high-danger chances than they give up, as they have since the coaching change, just keep all of this in mind.