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.
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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…
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