What We Learned: How the surprising Bruins have rebounded

Most people didn’t have the Boston Bruins making the playoffs this season, and back in October that was a reasonable position to take.

The reasons why the Bruins were a fading star in the NHL over the past few years were only going to exacerbate themselves: almost everyone the blue line was either too old or too young to be truly difference-making and the forward depth was thinning out year-by-year, and once again too much money was being allocated to guys who weren’t going to make much of a difference. Tuukka Rask having an off year in 2015-16 was a big reason they missed the playoffs for a third year running, and some were not entirely convinced that was something he’d be able to turn it around.

All told that seems like a pretty decent recipe for Boston taking another step toward what could be a badly needed rebuild.

Instead the team is in a playoff position entering the new year, with the ground underneath them at least somewhat shaky (they, Ottawa, and Tampa are within two points of each other but the other two have games in hand). Some might see this as cause for concern, or proof that the Bruins aren’t actually all that good because they can barely keep their heads above water in a mediocre division.

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But here’s something really shocking for you: While the Bruins are currently third in their division, eighth in the East, and 13th in the league, they’re also first in adjusted 5-on-5 shot attempts and shots on goal, and second in expected goals. They’re fifth from the bottom in PDO. They’re 27th in terms of the difference between their expected and actual goals, indicating just how unlucky they’ve been.

Perhaps it’s not a surprise that a team coached by Claude Julien — one of the best coaches in the league for at least a decade now, even if he never gets as much credit as he deserves — is defensively stalwart. The Bruins are succeeding because Rask is back to being Rask and the team in front of him has rejiggered its defensive systems to play into its emerging strengths, rather than clinging hopelessly to what worked when Zdeno Chara could still skate. But the Bruins give up the second-fewest scoring chances at 5-on-5, and have the second-best PK percentage in the league. A lot of that is down to Rask (.929, which is right in line with the best performances in his career) but you have to say the Bruins keep shots to the outside and make his job easier; the average shot he faces in all situations comes from almost 37.5 feet away from him. Among heavily used goaltenders, only Peter Budaj of the always-stalwart Kings has more time to see shots (average distance of 39.2 feet away).

Again, we really didn’t have a lot of reason to think this team was going to be any good defensively. Their defenders are Chara (now age 39), John-Michael Liles (36), Adam McQuaid (30 and never good), Kevan Miller (29 and never even as good as McQuaid), Torey Krug (25 and more of an “improving offensive specialist” than “reliable all-situations D”), Brandon Carlo (20 and an unknown quantity), and Colin Miller (24 and hardly a Julien favorite). Not exactly ideal on paper.

But they’ve clearly made it work, largely because Carlo can play. He leads the B’s blue line in 5-on-5 minutes and even though he’s last in CF% he’s still north of 52 percent, getting tough minutes as a kid who started the season as a teenager. It’s tough to say he’s made Chara play like Vintage Chara but the numbers in this case do not lie. They play the toughest competition Julien can match them against, and start the vast majority of their shifts in their own zone. And while the jury is still out on whether zone starts “matter” in the grand scheme of things clearly this is a case where Julien knows the side on which his bread is — or more specifically is not — buttered and is making the best of a bad blue line situation. Again, you have to say it’s working, and that if anything the Bruins really can’t have expected to be any better than this in their own end.

But where the defensive performance is a bit of a surprise, the fact that this team can’t seem to buy a goal is pretty much the opposite. Almost everything they’re able to do offensively runs through the sensational line of Brad Marchand, Patrice Bergeron, and David Pastrnak. Together those three players have 36 of the team’s paltry 95 goals, which puts them near the bottom third of the league in terms of offensive output.

As a team they’re shooting just 7 percent and when you look at the assemblage of talent they bring to the table, you can begin to understand why. After that top line, you’ve got David Krejci, big free agent signing David Backes, a handful of talented youngsters (Frank Vatrano, who spent the first 30-plus games on LTIR, foremost among them), some fourth-liners, and a collection of guys the Bruins inexplicably thought were going to be scorers but aren’t and were never going to be. Jimmy Hayes? Matt Beleskey? They have a grand total of 4-4-8 between them. So nah.

Let’s put it this way: With Bergeron and Marchand on the ice together, the Bruins have generated 54 scoring chances at 5-on-5. That’s almost 1 in every 4 scoring chances the entire team has. It’s a major problem, and it’s tough to say for sure how you address it. Perhaps you just hope Vatrano — who appears to score at will because he shoots the puck like a madman (23.5 individual shot attempts per 60 minutes this season, currently second in the entire league) — is enough of a shooter that his being in the lineup every night generates more goals just through shot volume. Maybe you hope Krug starts to shoot more than 0.9 percent, because he’s second on the team in shots on goal.

The good news is that as long as you’re getting this kind of goaltending, your offense can drag a little bit. Especially if it’s just bad luck. It’s a bit of a shocker here, but the Bruins might just end up being one of those Kings-like teams of a few years ago: mediocre record but stellar process that makes them a nightmare early draw in the postseason. The bad luck isn’t giving them much margin for error, and to their credit, they’re not making that many mistakes.

If the puck ever starts bouncing their way offensively, look out.

What We Learned

Anaheim Ducks: You can say the Ducks are inconsistent in overtime, but it seems to me they consistently lose in overtime.

Arizona Coyotes: Prospect Clayton Keller is destroying the competition at World Junior, so that’s a positive.

Boston Bruins: Brad Marchand is hockey’s perfect angel.

Buffalo Sabres: Jack Eichel is angry about how the Sabres are bad. I get it, man.

Calgary Flames: The Flames are 8-10 at home which means they are 11-7-2 on the road. Which one of those numbers do you think is indicative of their actual quality?

Carolina Hurricanes: If only they’d put him in seven tenths of a second later.

Chicago: Well folks this seems bad.

Colorado Avalanche: Ah, there ya go.

Columbus Blue Jackets: Well I guess this means they’re great now.

Dallas Stars: Jamie Benn’s hurt now? Seems fine.

Detroit Red Wings: Only Kris Draper is dumb enough to try to get in a fight in an alumni game.

Edmonton Oilers: Well at least this McDavid kid can play. The rest of the team? Not so much.

Florida Panthers: Jagr scored again. Even after his slow start, he’s on pace for 50 points. He’ll never stop scoring.

Los Angeles Kings: This is an impressive win. I like the Kings again this year.

Minnesota Wild: Minnesota went from being the WWWWWWWWWWWWild to the wiLd.

Montreal Canadiens: And all it took was everyone on the team getting hurt.

Nashville Predators: Montreal wins the trade now because Subban is a coward!

New Jersey Devils: This is scary, scary stuff. Tom Wilson shouldn’t be in the league, full stop.

New York Islanders: “.500.”

New York Rangers: Maybe Nick Holden really can play after all? Kind of a surprise.

Ottawa Senators: Gotta feel like this is the beginning of the end for the Senators’ playoff hopes. Tampa’s getting its act together and Ottawa seems to be turning back into a pumpkin.

Philadelphia Flyers: Good lord, hope someone gave Steve Mason a big ol’ roll of bubble wrap for Christmas.

Pittsburgh Penguins: In the 2016 calendar year, the Penguins finished with 119 points in 84 regular season games and also I guess won that Stanley Cup and so on. Pretty good.

San Jose Sharks: Hey, cool for Aaron Dell.

St. Louis Blues: Gretzky played more minutes in the Blues’ alumni game than he did for the Blues in ’96.

Tampa Bay Lightning: In an ideal scenario for the Bolts, Callahan is on LTIR until his contract runs out.

Toronto Maple Leafs: Auston Matthews couldn’t pick Borje Salming out of a lineup, bud. Hate to tell ya. And that’s not a knock on him. Why should he be inspired by guys who he never saw play? Let him be inspired by Mats Sundin or whatever, but Wendel Clark retired when the kid was like two years old.

Vancouver Canucks: This is classic Spector, man.

Vegas Golden Knights: Now That’s What I Call Capitalism!

Washington Capitals: Nice to be able to play the Devils every once in a while. Cures what ails ya.

Winnipeg Jets: “Poor goaltending.” “Again.” Connor Hellebuyck is a .909 goalie because the team can’t kill a penalty to save its life, and this is a town that spent years with “Actually Ondrej Pavelec Being .904 Is Good” as its designated Hill To Die On. This rotten city doesn’t deserve a team, I swear.

Play of the Weekend

My large unruly son is at it again!!!

Gold Star Award

Shout out to Jorge Alves.

Minus of the Weekend

Hey Canada good game on Saturday ha ha ha.

Perfect HFBoards Trade Proposal of the Year

User “CellyHard” is, shockingly, from the state of Massachusetts.

Signoff

This isn’t a very happy birthday for Rex Banner.

Ryan Lambert is a Puck Daddy columnist. His email is here and his Twitter is here.

(All stats via Corsica unless otherwise noted.)