The Boston Bruins have a very good penalty kill. They need to stop testing it so much.
The latest evidence to support that case came Sunday night, when the Bruins handed the San Jose Sharks six power-play opportunities in what would ultimately be a 3-1 loss, with the final goal coming in empty-net fashion.
The Bruins were the better even-strength team in this one. They out-attempted the Sharks 54-30 at 5-on-5 and out-chanced them 21-8. They mounted an admirable comeback effort in the third period after trailing 2-0, putting together some dominant offensive-zone shifts and scoring at the end of one of them on a nice setup from David Pastrnak to the red-hot Morgan Geekie (who is once again tied for the NHL lead in goals at 17).
The problem was that the Bruins didn’t give themselves more time to play 5-on-5 because they kept taking penalties, something that has been an issue all season.
Their penalty kill did a mostly good job, killing off five of San Jose’s six man advantages. It even killed another extended 5-on-3. It did, however, crack once in the second period, when 19-year-old phenom Macklin Celebrini beat Jeremy Swayman through a moving screen to make it 2-0.
That was one of three Sharks power plays in the second period alone, and one of five in the first 40 minutes of the game. The first four were all tripping penalties, two of them on Jonathan Aspirot. The fifth was a foolish roughing penalty from Hampus Lindholm, who gave William Eklund an extra shove to the head right after a San Jose power play just started. As the Bruins tried to come back in the third, they had to kill another penalty after Henri Jokiharju got called for holding.
“We just took too many penalties. I thought we played well in the second there and had all the momentum, and then we took too many penalties,” said Elias Lindholm, who was back in the lineup for the first time since Oct. 30. “It just killed us a little bit. … It’s hard to win games in this league when you’re in the box that much.”
It is. And the Bruins have been in the box that much a lot this season. In fact, this was the 11th time in 24 games that the Bruins have been shorthanded five or more times. They have been shorthanded 94 times total, which is 13 more than any other team. They have faced seven 5-on-3 power plays this season, which is two more than anyone else. Four of those have come in the last five games, and all four were of the extended variety, lasting more than a minute.
This problem would look a lot worse if the Bruins didn’t have such a good penalty kill. Even with so many parades to the box, Boston’s PK has surrendered multiple goals in a game just three times this season.
But make no mistake: This is still a problem. All that time in the box is making it harder for the Bruins to win. As Elias Lindholm referenced, it kills momentum. It’s more time that offensive stars Pastrnak and Geekie aren’t on the ice.
“Absolutely. It is a concern,” Bruins coach Marco Sturm told NESN after the game. “Because that means you're going to leave your best players on the bench. As a player, if you ever play the game, you want to be in a rhythm. And if you're not in a rhythm, it's tough to get going again. If your best players sit on the bench too many times, then we have a problem. It's been an issue all year long.”
The Bruins have especially struggled with penalties on the road. They’ve been shorthanded 56 times in their 12 road games, versus 38 in their 12 home games. They have actually spent more time on the power play than the penalty kill at home (7:05 more, to be exact). On the road, however, they have spent 36:07 more on the PK than the PP. That’s three minutes more per game! No other team has a special teams time differential worse than minus-19:13 on the road. It’s not a coincidence that the Bruins are 8-4-0 at home but just 5-7-0 on the road.
The Bruins wrap up their pre-Thanksgiving four-game road trip Wednesday against the Islanders on Long Island.