What a week it’s been for the Boston Bruins. After coming off a huge victory against the Florida Panthers, the Bruins split their games this week and took three out of a possible four points. A strong start against a good Tampa Bay Lightning club and a demoralizing defeat to the Ottawa Senators capped off a short week of Bruins hockey. The layoff did the Bruins a favor due to their amount of injuries. In this weekly series, a dive will be taken into what’s happened under the surface and what’s stood out the most for this Bruins team.
The Bruins Are Scoring Goals
Don’t look now, but the Bruins are lighting the lamp more frequently. That is not something we have seen, but this week, they’ve done a tremendous job putting the puck in the net. The Bruins only played two games this week and scored 11 goals. That placed them in the top ten and the only teams ahead of them have played three or even four games. That’s a testament to the Bruins’ success.
Related: Bruins Offense Needs to Continue Playing Better in Front of Jeremy Swayman
The thing about the Bruins is they are not the best team at generating a ton of offense. In all situations, the Bruins generated just 4.63 expected goals in the two games. This tells me the Bruins may not be generating much, but they are capitalizing on the chances that they do get. You tip your cap to that and appreciate that the goals are coming and that the finishing ability has taken a step forward.
The Bruins have had nine different goal-scorers this week, with David Pastrnak and Pavel Zacha leading the way with two goals each. While the goals have been coming, the Bruins have done a poor job of suppressing the opposition.
Bruins Need to Be Better at Shot Suppression
When you look at the strength of how the Bruins are built, it’s from the back end out. Their strength is their goalies and then their defense. Although, they currently are down Charlie McAvoy and Hampus Lindholm, so they’ve needed guys to step into the forefront.
The Bruins won that game in Florida against the Panthers and truly dug deep for that victory. But how many times are they going to win a hockey game where they get outshot 43-18 and out-attempted 111-39? Probably not very many. Against the Lightning and the Senators, the lack of shot suppression continued.
The Bruins started strong against the Lightning, but good teams push back. The same can be said for the Senators, who are right on the heels of the Bruins for the playoffs. Combined, the Bruins surrendered 176 shot attempts while only having 97, which was good for a lowly 35.53 Corsi for percentage (CF%). More often than not, they are getting outshot, not generating enough scoring chances, and getting pummeled in the high-danger areas of the ice.
The scoring is there despite getting outplayed, but they have begun to overwork their goalies.
Swayman Remains Red Hot Between the Pipes
There is not much more you can ask when it comes to Jeremy Swayman. He started the year slow, which was expected due to missing training camp and preseason. However, since the Christmas break, Swayman has looked like his normal self. This is a great thing because the team in front of him has made him work for it.
Three games in a row now, the Bruins have given up 40-plus shots on goal. Swayman became the fourth Bruins goalie to make 40-plus saves in consecutive appearances. That’s a lot of rubber to be facing, and Swayman has made sure to shoulder that load. Over the last three games when facing this workload, he has a .924 save percentage. That’s a testament to the success he is having while facing this volume of shots. Also, he has 3.4 goals saved above expected over that stretch of games.
This is all good to see from your starting netminder. However, the team needs to do a better job at suppressing the opposition, because asking your goalie to stand on his head every night isn’t ideal or sustainable. It’s only January and the Bruins are clawing for that playoff spot. Running the goalies into the dirt is not the way to get there.
Hats off to Swayman, who is playing much better hockey.
The Road Ahead for the Bruins
The Bruins have quite the road ahead of them this upcoming week. After having a layoff for a few days, they’ll play four games over the next week. They’ll take on three teams that are in playoff position or knocking on the door. For the Bruins to have better success, they’ll want to suppress the opposition better and not overwork their goalies. If they can keep the goal-scoring up, they’ll be in good shape.
