The Boston Bruins are surging again. For the second time this season, they have responded to a six-game losing streak by immediately going on a run.
The Skate Pod: Takeaways from Bruins' historic weekend
Back in late October/early November, the Bruins won eight of nine following their early-season losing streak. After Tuesday night’s 3-0 win over the Detroit Red Wings, they’ve now won six of seven this time around.
They’re winning in different ways, too, exploding for 10 goals on Saturday against the Rangers before turning in back-to-back shutouts – their first two shutouts of the season – against the Penguins on Sunday and Red Wings on Tuesday.
They wake up Wednesday morning in a playoff spot on points, actually jumping up to seventh in the East after Tuesday night, although they’re still 11th in the conference on points percentage.
How are the Bruins doing it? Here are four of the biggest reasons:
Goaltending
They’ve gotten back-to-back shutouts, from Joonas Korpisalo on Sunday followed by Jeremy Swayman on Tuesday. Obviously the goaltending has been pretty good. Duh.
But it really is worth hammering the point home. This team isn’t talented enough to win consistently if it’s not getting high-level goaltending. Swayman and Korpisalo slipping certainly wasn’t the only reason the Bruins started losing in late December, but it was a big part of it for sure.
Coach Marco Sturm also ended up in a bad spot in terms of workloads – for both goalies. Korpisalo had been struggling, so Sturm stopped playing him and started leaning on Swayman more. But then Swayman wound up playing six games in 10 days going into Christmas and looked overworked. When Sturm finally had to turn to Korpisalo out of sheer necessity, Korpisalo looked rusty. It had become a self-defeating cycle.
Sturm has gotten back to a healthier balance recently, though. Korpisalo has been very good his last two times out (2-0-0, .982 save percentage), so Sturm should now have enough trust to use him a little more and not ride Swayman for four or more consecutive starts.
Swayman has also been very good in four of his five starts during this turnaround, including Tuesday’s 24-save shutout (now 4-1-0 with a .919 save percentage in his last five). The only stinker was last week in Seattle, when Sturm again tested his limits for a fourth straight start. Mixing in Korpisalo once every three or four games should be the formula going forward – as long as Sturm trusts both goalies.
Better 5-on-5 play
For most of this season, the Bruins had been a mediocre-to-subpar 5-on-5 team, hovering right around net zero in terms of goal differential. Over these last seven games, though, they have outscored teams 24-8 at 5-on-5, the best goal differential in the NHL during that time.
Now, Saturday’s historic blowout of the Rangers skews that number quite a bit. The Bruins outscored New York 9-1 at 5-on-5 in that one. But even if you take out that extreme outlier, a 15-7 advantage in the other six games of this turnaround is still really good.
The Bruins have also been in the positive in the underlying numbers, with 52.7% of shot attempts and 52.1% of scoring chances over this seven-game stretch. That’s not super dominant by any means, but it’s an encouraging development for a team that has been under 50% for the season.
For Sturm, the 5-on-5 improvement comes down to breakouts – being cleaner on his team’s own breakouts, and also disrupting opponents’ breakouts more.
“I think one thing I learned very quickly with Todd McLellan was, when an entry is not working, you don't look at actually the entry on the blue line. You look at, where is it coming from?” Sturm said. “So for me, an entry goes back to the breakouts, right? Same thing on the defensive zone. I think for me, it already starts in o-zone. And that's the biggest improvement we made, not just offensively, but also defensively. We track so well now. We hunt, we reload, and that sets us up, I think, for better success going back to our end. I'm a big believer. I think that's something we've been really, really good at as of late.”
Contributions throughout lineup
Morgan Geekie, the Bruins’ leading goal-scorer, has not scored during these seven games. There was a very good reason he may have been a bit distracted. Geekie’s wife, Emma, went into labor during Saturday’s game and gave birth to their second child, Max, later that day. Geekie understandably sat out Sunday’s game as well to be with his growing family.
The Bruins have still been winning because a lot of other guys have stepped up. David Pastrnak, for one, has gone full superstar mode with 15 points in the last seven games, including a franchise-record-tying six assists on Saturday. He even helped set the tone physically early in Tuesday’s game.
Beyond that, Marat Khusnutdinov, Viktor Arvidsson and Fraser Minten each have eight points in these seven games. Elias Lindholm and Charlie McAvoy have been point-per-game players as well. Pavel Zacha has four goals in the last three games, including the opening score Tuesday. Jonathan Aspirot and Henri Jokiharju have both been stellar since returning from injury, helping the blue line overcome Hampus Lindholm’s injury. Lindholm could return to practice in the next few days.
Fewer penalties
Given that the Bruins have been the most penalized team in the NHL this season, this just might be the most important point of all.
In their last four games, all wins, the Bruins have given their opponents just eight power plays – two in each game. They have killed off seven of those. The only power-play goal they have allowed was Saturday against the Rangers, when they already had a 6-1 lead.
The Bruins had survived their penalty troubles for a little while this season because their penalty kill started strong, but it caught up to them in December as their PK slipped, which was probably in part because of how much they were overtaxing it.
Add onto it that constantly being on the PK disrupts your 5-on-5 flow, and it’s just an unsustainable formula. It’s not a coincidence that both the PK and the Bruins’ 5-on-5 game have looked better when they’ve stayed out of the box.
*************************
Next up for the Bruins is a big night on Thursday, when they retire Zdeno Chara’s No. 33 before taking on the Seattle Kraken. The ceremony is scheduled to begin at 6:20 p.m., with puck drop set for 8 p.m.