NHL Atlantic Division Power Rankings: Why the Boston Bruins Can’t Escape Last Place
There are several Atlantic Division teams struggling right now and still the Boston Bruins are unable to pull themselves out of the basement. You’re Locked On Bruins, your daily podcast on the Boston Bruins, part of the Locked On podcast network, your team every day. [Music] What is up, Bruins fans? and welcome back to the Locked On Boston Bruins podcast. I’m your host, Ian McLaren, and this is a daily show where we discuss all things Spoke B. Today is Thursday, October 30th. Thank you so much for making Lockdown Bruins your first listen every day, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. And on this episode, we are going to bring the latest Atlantic Division power rankings, looking at the bottom four teams, the top four teams, where the Bruins rank among them. Spoiler alert, they are at the bottom. We will also preview tonight’s pretty big game against the Buffalo Sabres, and also touch on the 7 and0 Providence Bruins and whether or not there should be some help recalled from there. Today’s episode is brought to you by FanDuel. Download the FanDuel app now by visiting fanuel.com and win $300 in bonus bets if your first $5 bet wins. Before we get into it, a quick reminder. You can find the podcast on socials, locked NHL Bruins. That’s on X Blue Sky, Instagram, Threads, Tik Tok. You can find me, my hockey thoughts, dad jokes at Ian C McLaren. I am a lifelong Boston Bruins fan. And I’ve been covering this team and the NHL for various outlets for nearly 20 years. All right, let’s do our weekly look at the Atlantic Division power rankings. And unfortunately brings me no joy to tell you that our Boston Bruins are firmly in last place. In fact, there are five of the eight teams in the Atlantic who are at 500 exactly 500 point percentage, meaning they’ve played 10 or 11 games and have acrewed 10 or 11 points so far this season. The Bruins have played 12 games, which I believe is more than any other team around the NHL, and they have a point percentage of 40, sorry, 417. They’ve got a record of 57-0, 10 points through 12 games. Only four teams in the NHL have worse point percentages than our Boston Bruins in the Atlantic alone. They’re the only team below 500 and they also have the lowest goal differential as well at minus5. Scoring is not a been a huge issue for this team. They have 39 goals, which is actually only two away from tops in the Atlantic. The Senators have scored 41 goals. The Montreal Canadiens have scored 40, and the Bruins have scored 39. The problem is they have allowed the most goals among any team in the Atlantic. Uh Ottawa is right there with 44 as are our Boston Bruins. So, their goal differential currently sits at minus5. Bruins firmly in last place here in the Atlantic division. And it’s really too bad the Bruins are off to this up and down start because the powerhouses are supposed powerhouses in the Atlantic division are also off to tough starts. Right now, I’m putting in seventh place the Toronto Maple Leafs, who are coming off a 6263 loss to Columbus last night. They’re 55-1 through 11 games. So, they have a 500 point percentage, but a minus4 goal differential after last night’s effort, 45-1 over their past 10 games. And they’re joined pretty much by the Florida Panthers who are also 5’5 and one 500 point percentage with a minus4 goal differential for five and one over their past 10 games. Now they are without of course Alexander Barov. They’re without Matthew Kachchuck and they’ve been without Brad Marshon for a few games as he flew home to Nova Scotia to be with family friends who lost their 10-year-old daughter to cancer. So, shout out to Brad for making that a priority, for going home, for coaching in that uh game, for for all of this. And uh we hope that he can get back to his team after providing some good support uh for, you know, very close friends. Now, so we got Boston, Toronto, Florida. Still a mixed bag here in the middle of the Atlantic. The Ottawa Senators, they are also 55 and one, 11 points, 500 point percentage. They have a minus three goal differential. They are the highest scoring team in the Atlantic, but they’re also the worst defensive team in the Atlantic based on uh goals allowed, tied with the Bruins at 44. And we all recall the tremendous goalending tandem of Jeremy Swayman and Lusark. Both of these guys struggling to begin the season. Although Swim and I believe has a bit bit of an edge in terms of save percentage, uh, Unus Basalo played very well in the win over the New York Islanders. When you look at the goalending for the Bruins versus the Senators right now, Swayman’s got a record of three and four with a save percentage of 886. Unic score basalo is two and three with a safe percentage of 870. And if you go over to uh the Ottawa Senator side of things, we know uh Levi Marilinen started the game on Monday, got the win. He is 1 and one with an 833 save percentage. Lena’s all mark 44 and one with an 858 save percentage. So both their starter and their backup have worse numbers than Boston’s starter and backup and that’s why they’re only uh one point ahead of the Bruins. Albeit again the Bruins have more games played. So that’s kind of the bottom four at the moment in the Atlantic. You have Boston, Toronto, Florida, and Ottawa. And right along the beside them at 500, you also have the Tampa Bay Lightning, who are 44 and two, 10 points in 10 games, a negative one goal differential. And you have tonight’s opponent, the Buffalo Sabres, who are 44 and two as well, 500 point percentage, and a minus1 goal differential. The Lightning, however, have won three in a row after a really poor start. Uh, two straight overtime decisions for the Buffalo Sabres. They also had a near disastrous start going 0 and3 and uh so far over the last seven games they have a record of 41 and two. So, they are really coming on here. They’re tonight’s opponent and uh we’ll preview that one more in depth here as the podcast uh continues. But right now that is your top six all at exactly 500 when it comes to Buffalo, Tampa, Ottawa, Florida, and Toronto with our Bruins the lone team under 500 and with the worst goal differential in the division coming in at number eight. We’ll look at the top two teams, preview tonight’s game against the Buffalo Sabres here as the podcast continues. 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So that’s a 700 point percentage and they have a goal differential of plus four. Two wins in a row and they’ve been doing this largely without Patrick Kane who’s been out of the lineup for the last few games at least uh due to injury. And then that would leave the Montreal Canadians as your top team in the Atlantic right now. Eight and three, 727 point percentage uh plus seven goal differential and they have just been rolling as of late. Cole Caulfield, Nick Suzuki, Uri Lakovski, uh goalending of Sam Montembbo, Jacob Dobs, like this team, I thought they were going to be uh pretty good once again, and they’re proving to be just that. Now, it should be noted that so sometimes on this podcast, we talk about PDO, right, which is shooting percentage plus save percentage at five on five. And that kind of gives you a look at uh whether a team is overachieving or underachieving based on the fact that it usually levels out around an even 100. And you look at the standings right now, PDIO teams right at the 100 mark are LA, New Jersey, and they’re 1516 in terms of that particular stat. If you have a number over 500 or 100, it means that you are excelling when it comes to save percentage and usually shooting percentage at the same time. The number one team for reference is Chicago Blackhawks. They have a 12.5 shooting percentage and a 92.5% um save percentage. So, they’ve got a PDO of 1.05. Our Boston Bruins 9.64 save percentage, 88.35 uh save percentage, 9.64 shooting percentage, they’re down at 980. So, the Bruins with some more saves, some more puck luck at five on five, they should be able to move up a bit. They got a bit of uh things working against them. The Ottawa Senators 974. So if they can get their go back up to par, they should still be in the playoff mix. The Detroit Red Wings are at 963. So even with the amount of success they’ve had so far, it’s also an issue where they’re not getting the saves either at five on five. So there is room for them to continue to improve if they get the goalending. Uh the Montreal Canadians on the other hand, elevated shooting percentage, elevated save percentage, five on five. So they could fall back down to earth here a little bit. So just uh some added context there for uh these early season performances. Now tonight our Boston Bruins are in action against the Buffalo Sabres. And this is a pretty big game for Boston because again they’re 5-7 losing record. Even with the win they’ll still be under 500. But the Sabres are extremely vulnerable and the Bruins have already beaten them 3-1 already this season back on October 11th. The Sabres have lost two games in a row, both in overtime, one to Toronto, one to Columbus. Prior to that, they beat Toronto, they beat Detroit, and they’ve also beaten Florida and Ottawa so far this season. So, this is a pretty important game for the Bruins if they want to build on the momentum of that Islanders game and start to get back in the mix with these other 500 teams. The Sabres led in net by Alex Lion. He’s got a record of 34 and one, but with a 919 save percentage. Ukinan only played in one game so far. He’s 0 and1 with an 826 save percentage. And I already talked earlier about the Bruins uh goalending situation. They got a pretty balanced offense. Alex Tuck leads the way with nine points in 10 games. Ta Thompson with eight points in 10 games. Uh Zack Benson, seven points in seven games. And he’s joined by Ryan Mloud, youngster uh Josh, David Suck, Zucker, sorry, David Sucker. No, Jason Zucker, Jack Quinn, uh, chipping in as well. And then on the blue line, they have Rasmus Dalene, who is one of the premier defenseman in the NHL. They have a power play that is going at a 21.9% success rate, which is just slightly worse than Boston’s 22%, which puts them in 12th. The Sabres do have the best penalty kill in the NHL. They’re killing 91.2% of the opposition’s opportunities. The Bruins back up over 80%. They are at 14th. So, special teams will be key. The Bruins need to stay disciplined and also try to break through on this Sabres penalty kill. Faceoffs could be a huge factor. The Bruins are the second ranked team in terms of faceoff success this season, 54.9%. The Sabres dead last at 41.9%. So, the Bruins need to win their faceoffs, especially in the offensive zone, get possession, start to cycle the puck, and uh get the puck on net. The Bruins actually have a better offense per game than the Sabres. They’re scoring 3.25 goals per game. Sabres are scoring only three. Sabres better defensively though, 3.1 goals allowed, whereas the Bruins are allowing 3.67. Morgan Geeki with six goals over the last five games for the Bruins. David Posnock with seven points uh to lead the way for this team. He’s got 15 points in 12 games. Pavl Zaka Morgan Geeki each with 10 points with uh Elias Lindhomem rounding out the top four. I bet you can’t guess who is the fifth leading scorer on the Boston Bruins right now. It’s not Casey Middlestat. It’s not Victor Arvdson. Both of whom are um on the second line. I should say the fifth highest scoring forward because Charlie Makavoy is in there with eight assists so far this season. Coming in behind Poshernak, Zaka, Geeki, and Lindto. But the fifth highest scoring forward is Mikey Acimont, who’s got three goals, four assists in 12 games despite averaging the second lowest amount of ice time among Bruins forwards so far this season. So, he’s making the most of his opportunities and giving the Bruins some good depth scoring. uh in a limited role. He was put up on the second line at one point, so maybe we’ll see some line shuffling there. Uh other Atlantic teams in action tonight, the Senators taking on the Flames, Lightning, Stars. Uh you also have the Red Wings out on the West Coast taking on the LA Kings. So, that’s a quick look at the Atlantic Division power rankings as well as tonight’s game against the Buffalo Sabres. Coming up here, we have to talk about the Providence Bruins, 7-0. Let’s take a look at how they’re being powered to such a great start here as locked on Boston Bruins continues. Let’s be real. Most of us can’t even name all of our financial accounts, let alone what they’re worth. Between 401ks, savings, and investments, it’s easy to lose track. And that can mean leaving money on the table. That’s why I started using Monarch. It’s an all-in-one personal finance tool that brings your entire financial life together in one clean, easy to use interface on your laptop or your phone. It’s helped me organize my accounts, track my spending, get a better handle on investments without having to touch a spreadsheet. 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You have Riley Tuy who’s got five goals, six assists in seven games, 11 total points, 1.57 points per game. You have Georgie Murculov, five goals, five assists. Patrick Brown, the veteran, four goals, six assists. Mate Lumel, averaging more than a point per game with two goals and seven assists. You also have Fabian Lysel, who’s got four goals, three assists. This is all through seven games. Alex Steves, three goals, three assists. Matt Potra, no goals yet, but six assists. Uh Brett Harrison averaging a point per game, five points through five games and on it goes. The BA Boston Bruins again the issue hasn’t been necessarily scoring for this team. It’s more defensive based. But what’s the harm in recalling a guy like Riley Tuy who’s been rolling at the NHL or sorry the AHL level and who could potentially make more of an impact than Marcus Stellic or even Moratudinov. Their goalending down in the AHL has been fantastic as well. Michael Dpietro 4-0 record with a 914 save percentage. Simon Zichek 3 and 0 with a 939 save percentage. At the very least, I wouldn’t mind seeing if the Bruins lose tonight, say, uh, we could see a situation where you are forced to make a recall here, forced to shake things up a little bit. I wouldn’t mind seeing Riley uh, Tuy up here. Perhaps you put him on the third line with Fraser Minton, Tanner Jano, Udinov in and out of the lineup. The fourth line right now, AC Cari Castelik Cari or Castella could be given a night off. There’s a lot of options here, but the Providence Bruins, these guys were sent down with the kind of mandate to, hey, you didn’t step up enough during the preseason, whatever that was worth. You are excelling at the AHL level. You’re understanding the assignment. you went down, you accepted it, and you came out um firing to begin the season, and hey, things aren’t working as much at the NHL level for some of these guys. Let’s change things up here a little bit. And I know Marco Sturm last week said that, you know, the these are the guys we have. This is what we’re rolling with. But it’s very easy to be able to send some of these guys down to uh down to the AHL. Uh I mean, Minton Fraser is the only guy on the NHL roster who is waiver exempt, but um and there are some concerns that, you know, you try to send down uh Jeffrey Vl, but a John Beecher or a Husinov that these guys would get scooped off the waiver wire. Sean Carali is proving to be a reliable fourthline center. Those are probably the only guys that you would swap. So I would say, you know, send VL on waiverss, put him down, call up at least a Riley Tuy who is playing so well at the NHL level. He’s 27 years old. So it’s not like you are, you know, promoting a rookie. He does have some NHL experience, playing six games last year for the Bruins, no no points, five games for the ABS, several games for the Dallas Stars, 24 NHL appearances, two goals, one assist, a bit of a journeyman, a bit of a career minor leager, but he’s playing extremely well and he could bring a lot of the elements that the Bruins are looking for in terms of two-way play, piss and vinegar, and scoring as well. So, if the Bruins lose tonight, VL has played limited minutes. Uh, I think it’s worth exploring at least that recall. But huge congratulations to the Providence Bruins for this amazing start to the season. And uh Riley Tuy is my Bruin of the day based on the fact that he is leading this team in scoring. They play once again on Saturday. And again, the Bruins last night, Providence Bruins beating the previously undefeated Scranton, Wilksbar, Penguins, Patrick Brown with two assists. Brett Harrison, Riley Tuy, Georgie Merculov all scored. DPro 25 saves to earn the victory. Uh this team is just rolling at the moment. Tuy with points in his last five games. 11 points in that span. Harrison and Merculov goals in back-to-back games. Franchise best start 70 and0. And um next up for them will be the Hershey Bears who are uh the Washington Capitals AHL team. All right, that is it for today’s episode of Locked On Boston Bruins, my friends. Thank you so much for joining me here today, making it your first listen. Please do check out the Locked On NHL game night podcast next. There was only one game in the NHL last night, but they’ll have it all covered every game, every night until a Stanley Cup champion is crowned. You can find that on the Locked On NHL podcast feed and on YouTube. Please subscribe to this podcast on your favorite podcast app and on YouTube if you have not done so already. It’s all part of the Locked On Network, your favorite team every single day. Take care of yourselves, friends. Take care of each other. We’ll talk to you again here tomorrow to recap the game against the Sabres. bring you all the storylines, stats, and significance and all the latest on the black and gold here on Locked on Boston Bruins, your favorite team every single day.
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2 comments
Ian!!! How’s it going?
By the way, Go Blue Jays, even though I’m an Orioles fan.