The Boston Bruins stand out as one of the NHL’s premier defensive teams, backed by a combination of solid two-way play from their forwards, stellar defensive performances, and exceptional goaltending courtesy of Linus Ullmark and Jeremy Swayman. This defensive prowess has become the cornerstone of the Bruins’ identity. However, their offensive capabilities should not be understated, as they currently rank in the top 10 of teams for goal-scoring in the NHL. While not labeled as an offensive powerhouse, the Bruins boast four players on pace to exceed 30 goals this season and this isn’t getting discussed enough.
David Pastrnak, Brad Marchand, Pavel Zacha, and Charlie Coyle are all maintaining a pace that could see them surpass the 30-goal mark. Marchand, Coyle, and Zacha are projected to hover around the 30-goal range, with Pastrnak once again dominating and poised to exceed 50 goals. Marchand’s consistent goal-scoring performance aligns with his track record, having reached or been on pace for the 30-goal mark eight times in his career by the start of the 2023-24 season. Conversely, both Coyle and Zacha are experiencing a level of production previously unseen in their careers.
This season, Coyle and Zacha have risen to the occasion, excelling as top-six centers. Despite the stability and certainty, the Bruins have had in their top six for the better part of two decades, that all came crashing down this offseason when both Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci retired from professional hockey. With salary cap issues to consider, the Bruins opted to fill holes on their roster with inexpensive contracts and let Coyle and Zacha play larger roles on this team. While there was never going to be anybody who could step in and fully replace Bergeron and Krejci’s impact both on and off the ice, Coyle and Zacha have done an admiral job at filling the roles.
Bruins Remain the Class of the NHL
On paper, the Bruins were supposed to be a far worse team this season than they were last season; this was due to the loss of so many talented players, but also natural regression as the Bruins had put together the best regular season in NHL history in 2022-23. Though this was the expectation, the Bruins still had no intention of fully rebuilding and dropping out of the playoff hunt. To the surprise of just about everybody, the Bruins have not only been competitive this season, they’ve been the gold standard once again and have lost just two games in regulation all season long and sit atop the NHL.
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A big part of this success can be attributed to Zacha and Coyle who didn’t sit idly by and waste the opportunity presented. Instead, the two are on pace for career-highs in goals and points this season and are key cogs in the Bruins’ machine this season. Coyle’s current career-highs include 21 goals (2015-16), 38 assists (2016-17) and 56 points (2016-17). This season, he’s on pace for 30 goals and 73 points. Similarly, Zacha put together his career-highs in all categories last season with 21 goals, 36 assists and 57 points. He’s now on pace for 30 goals and just under 64 points this season.
Approaching the quarter-mark of the 2023-24 season, it’s a fair time to start looking at how players are performing and make projections. While these projections are entirely surface-level and based on nothing more than prorated statistics, it’s encouraging that the Bruins are getting such excellent goal production from their top-six players who should be producing the most.
Expanding the scope, James van Riemsdyk and Trent Frederic also contribute to the optimism, on pace for 22 and 21 goals respectively this season. It’s been a solid effort up and down the lineup and the only skater to not record a single point for the Bruins this season has been Jesper Boqvist (and he played just 6:02 in his loan game back in October). Otherwise, the Bruins have gotten at least one point from 24 different players this season, including at least one goal from 17 skaters.
The Bruins proving that unselfish play and a strong team-first environment has made all the difference in taking this squad from a good one to a great one. The production hasn’t slowed down from a season ago and while there are certainly stars on the team leading the way, it’s been a full team effort led by head coach Jim Montgomery that’s taken this team to the top of the standings thus far. If the Bruins are going to remain successful, they’ll need their stars to continue producing, but also the rest of the team to continue playing their own role and making an impact however they can.
