For the second game in a row, the Boston Bruins outplayed their opponent for much of the night. For the second game in a row, they scored just one goal and lost, this time falling 2-1 to a New York Rangers squad that had lost four in a row coming in.
The Bruins had plenty of chances in this one. They had chances before falling behind 2-0 midway through the first period. They had chances and time to come back after that. They had one offensive-zone shift after another in the third period while trailing by one. But as has been the case too often this season, they couldn’t finish.
Give Rangers goalie Jonathan Quick credit. He made several 10-bell saves and was by far New York’s best player. But the Bruins have developed a habit of making opposing goalies look great this season.
Boston is shooting just 9.3% as a team this year, which is tied for 27th in the NHL. They are scoring 2.58 goals per game, which ranks 29th.
“It’s frustrating,” interim head coach Joe Sacco said postgame. “Obviously we’re not scoring right now at the level that we want to be, not for a lack of some opportunities. We’re just not finishing right now. … Unfortunately, we’re just not putting the puck in the back of the net right now.”
Like Thursday night, the Bruins have been getting chances – and good ones – especially since the switch to Sacco in mid-November. According to Natural Stat Trick, the Bruins rank 12th in the NHL in high-danger chances and 10th in expected goals.
So, why is there such a disparity between the expected goals and the actual goals scored? You could say bad luck. There has been some of that for sure. The Bruins’ top six shot-takers all have shooting percentages below their career averages right now.
But with the season now just about at the halfway point, it’s also fair to say that the Bruins simply lack finishing talent. This team doesn’t have snipers. And the one usually reliable sniper that they do have – David Pastrnak – is having by far the worst shooting season of his career.
Pastrnak leads the NHL in shots with 163, including seven more on Thursday. But he is tied for 60th in goals with 13. He is burying just 8% of his shots, after 10 straight years of shooting at least 10.8%. If he were shooting 10.8% this year, he would have 18 goals and be tied for 12th in the NHL. If he were shooting his career average of 13.6%, he would have 22 and be tied for sixth.
Part of that is bad luck, yes. But part of it is also that, while the Bruins as a team are getting more high-danger chances, Pastrnak individually is not. He is averaging 9.7 scoring chances per 60 minutes, down from 12.34 last year and 13.99 in his 61-goal season two years ago. According to MoneyPuck, his average shot distance this season has been 34.6 feet, which is more than two feet further out than last season, and a foot and a half further out than two years ago.
Pastrnak is settling for lower-quality shots than usual. He needs to work harder to get better chances, but he could also use better playmaking talent around him to set him up in better spots. And when Pastrnak is the one creating chances for others, he could use better finishing on the other end (we’ll note here that Elias Lindholm did finish off a great pass from Pastrnak for the Bruins’ lone goal Thursday).
This is where the calls for one or more of the Providence kids come in. Matt Poitras, Fabian Lysell and Georgii Merkulov are all offensive-minded players who are producing in the AHL right now. They have all seen varying amounts of time in Boston already this season – 14 games for Poitras, three for Merkulov, one for Lysell. They have not produced much in that limited NHL time, with one goal and four assists between them in those 18 combined games.
The Bruins are conducting several balancing acts when it comes to the decisions on if or when to give one of them a longer look. With Poitras, who has the most NHL experience of the three and is probably the most likely to stick for good whenever he gets the call, the Bruins truly believe that the increased ice time and all-situations usage that he is getting in Providence will pay off for him and them in the long run. With all three, the Bruins are hesitant to risk the defensive structure and identity that they have found under Sacco.
But that improved team defense is only going to get the Bruins so far if they can’t score at the other end. At some point, they are going to have to take a chance and see if they have more offense in-house. And general manager Don Sweeney owes it to himself and the team to give one or more of the kids a real shot – not just one game like Lysell got this past weekend – over these next two months before the trade deadline.