Starting Slow

The Boston Bruins’ season is underway, and it has not started the way they wanted it to. They’ve played seven games and sit at 3-4 in fifth place in the Atlantic Division. As reigning President’s Trophy winners and heavy favorites to win the division again this year, a 3-4 start is not what anyone expected. Of course, this is not the same team that cruised to a 117-point season last year, as they are down two key players in Jarome Iginla and Johnny Boychuk. Iginla, a 30-goal scorer last year, left in free agency to join the Colorado Avalanche, who had a lot more money to offer him than the “capped out” Bruins. The Bruins then traded Boychuk to the New York Islanders for two second round draft picks and a conditional third rounder. The move was made essentially to free up cap space for Riley Smith and Torey Krug’s one-year contracts.

Because of the complete lack of cap space, the Bruins had one of the most boring offseasons in the history of the NHL. In fact, the Bruins signed exactly zero free agents. Instead, they turned within to find replacements for Iginla, Boychuk, and Shawn Thornton, who also walked in free agency. It’s still not entirely clear who has won those spots, though the Bruins did sign Simon Gagne a few days into the season and he’s been on the roster ever since. Matt Fraser and Seth Griffith are two young guys that also seem to have found their place with the Bruins, though both have been healthy scratches at times and neither has made much of an impact yet.

The slow start can be attributed to a few things. One is the lack of identity. The only line that has been the same for all seven games has been Bergeron centering Riley Smith and Brad Marchand. Other than that, it has been a lot of mixing and matching. The result is a mere 15 goals through seven games, and, of course, a record under .500. Only 11 of those goals have come from forwards, just 1.57 goals per game. If this team is going to win more hockey games, they need more than a goal and a half per game from their 12 forwards. The best way the Bruins can improve their offense is to stabilize the lines and let them gel. Aside from the Bergeron line, the Chris Kelly-Carl Soderberg-Loui Eriksson line has also been relatively unchanged and has actually been the Bruins’ most productive trio this season (five goals).

The biggest question the Bruins face offensively is who will play along side David Krejci opposite Milan Lucic. So far it has been a two-man rotation between Gagne and Griffith. Of the two, Gagne has looked a lot better on that line, scoring a goal and creating multiple chances. Griffith is an undersized, speedy youngster who scored at a breathtaking pace in the OHL (166 points in 122 games from 2011-2013 with the London Knights) and added 50 points (20 goals, 30 assists) in his first AHL season last year with the Providence Bruins. In his three NHL games this season he has looked timid in the corners, sloppy with the puck and otherwise overwhelmed. Of course, that’s perfectly acceptable for a relatively small 21-year old playing in his first NHL games, but the Bruins might not have the luxury of letting him adjust given how much they’re struggling offensively. He’s someone I’d send back to Providence for another season if he doesn’t show some promise in his next five or so games.

Defensively the Bruins have been decent. They certainly don’t look like the lock down defense that won a Stanley Cup in 2011 and a President’s Trophy last year, but they’ve been serviceable. They’re still clearly looking for someone to step up and be the all-around defenseman that Johnny Boychuk was. Boychuk was a rare combination of a defenseman that could punish the opponent in the defensive zone, sell out to block shots on the penalty kill and generate offense going the other direction. So far Adam McQuaid has been filling the penalty killing time and Dougie Hamilton has been providing the offense alongside Zdeno Chara as well as on the powerplay. Neither player looks like Boychuk just yet. Dennis Seidenberg is also still shaking off the rust from his ACL surgery, and will presumably return to his elite form as the season wears on.

In net, it’s the same old Bruins. Tuukka Rask is still one of, if not the best goaltenders in the league, and early indications are that Niklas Svedberg is an upgrade from Chad Johnson as the team’s backup goalie to give Rask a breather every now and then. Svedberg lost his first start of the season to the Colorado Avalanche 2-1 on a last second (literally) goal. He then followed it up with his first career NHL shutout (32 saves) in Buffalo on Saturday night.

Going forward I expect the Bruins to improve. It’s certainly not time to panic yet. This team was discombobulated from the start with open competitions for roster spots and injuries to Krejci and Gregory Campbell. As the lines begin to stabilize the offensive production will come. Guys like Lucic and Brad Marchand are notoriously slow starters, and while invisible through seven games, those two guys will begin to find the back of the net. They’ve also played more games than any other team in the NHL so far. The crammed schedule to open the season leaves very little time to improve in practice and build chemistry amongst the lines. As the schedule gets lighter, the Bruins’ quality of play should get stronger.

All of that being said, however, this isn’t a President’s Trophy team right now. They lost a 61-point player in Iginla and a top-notch NHL defenseman in Boychuk and are trying to replace them with guys with very little experience. There’s bound to be a regression when that happens. I still think they have the pieces to win the division, though it will be a much tighter contest this year with the Montreal Canadiens, Tampa Bay Lightning and Ottawa Senators looking much improved from last season. But if the Bruins want to contend for another Stanley Cup this year, they will need to add a top-6 winger and probably a top-4 defenseman at the trade deadline, barring any unforeseen breakout seasons from younger players.