Why The Boston Bruins Are WAY BETTER Than You Think

Why The Boston Bruins Are WAY BETTER Than You Think

Never in my life have I seen a fan base be so split on their team actually winning hockey games. The Boston Bruins have now won seven games in a row following a six-game losing streak to start the season. And this has fans feeling really confused about the direction of this franchise. You see, coming off their worst record season since 2006, expectations were at an all-time low in Boston. The team lacked top six talent, had little to no NHL ready prospects, and despite being their biggest strength, the backend and goalending was a huge question mark for the Bruins. Well, now we are about 20 or so games into the season, and you would think that Boston would have a very clear and upfront identity. Well, not exactly. You see, going into the season, the Bruins wanted to be a very physical and hard-to-play hockey team. And by all accounts, I think that they’ve done this and then more exceeding most of our expectations with a lot of their under the hood stats being surprisingly optimistic. So for my Bruins fans out there today, I’m going to talk about how the Boston Bruins are winning hockey games right now and explain why it’s actually going to be a good thing for the franchise moving forward, but at the same time, why it could be seen as a bad thing. So let’s divide this video up into two different parts. First, we are going to talk about what this team has done through their first 20-ish games of the season. Talk about their underlying stats, individual player successes, and the system that seems to be working well for Boston right now. The second half, I’m going to get into what a playoff or near playoff run could mean for the Bruins, and why there are both negatives and positives to this team actually putting up a good season. So, the intro to this video has been very long, and I’m sure you want to get right into today’s topic. So, last thing, if you’re enjoying the content lately, toss this a thumbs up and subscribe now. And with all that being said, let’s get into this breakdown. So, what is actually working for Boston? Now, the biggest criticism of this Bruins team was their lack of talent up front, specifically in their top six. But so far to start the season, the Bruins offense has been just about above average in every category. They are 12th in goals for per game at 3.29. They are 12th in power play percentage, scoring at a 22.2% success rate on the man advantage. And currently, the team’s overall shooting percentage ranks seventh in the NHL at 12.2%. And of course, individually, you have your usual culprits leading Boston in scoring. Pasta driving play. Geeky looking phenomenal after earning that extension. Pavle Zaka getting things done with some above expected point production. And in very positive news for Boston, Charlie Makavoy looks revitalized with his offensive output after a bit of a down season. Now, to really emphasize how this Bruins offense works, I want to take a look at their last game against the Toronto Maple Leafs. I believe they’re playing the Leafs again tonight. So, this will be their game from November 8th. There are three different goals that I want to go through and three different reasons for the Bruins success with their offense. The first is just David Poshnock being David Poshnock. We’ve seen that a lot throughout the season and I think that that’s something the Bruins will continue to bank on. The second is a bit of effort and maybe some puck luck. Just the Bruins playing until the very end of the whistle trying to get themselves in deep and in position to score some gritty goals, which I think is important for a team that quote unquote lacks that talent. And the last one is just the Bruins actually having a much better offense and bottom six than a lot of us maybe gave them credit for. This first goal is an example of David Poshernok being David Poshnok. Like I just mentioned, Morgan Geeki receives the puck off an offensive zone clear from the Bruins right outside their own blue line. And it’s here where individually Geeki deserves more credit for this play, maybe even more than Pasta. He is shoved and chopped at for a few seconds, but is able to maintain body position to send the puck up the ice to a flying pastronog. Pasta catches the puck at the blue line to avoid being offside. And this is where he gets to work. Now it’s here where he has two defenders ready to prevent him from getting to the net. Tavvarz up top and Bunois in front. Pasta sees that Tavvarz is preoccupied with making sure that no one can come up to receive a pass from Poshnock to extend the play at the last minute. Meaning that he basically has one route to the net and one man to beat. So he puts his head down and makes a few dipsy doodle plays to cut inside. Jams the puck past Dolars and gets a very important goal for the Bruins in this game. And the most impressive thing to me and most impressive part of this goal is the look off that he does right before deciding to make this dangle. That split second makes it seem like there’s another option on this play which freezes Ben Wad just enough to catch him on his edges. It’s the marginal things that separate good players from great players. And I think David Poshock showed us here that this is why he’s one of the top players in the league and that his hockey IQ is off the charts. Now, some might say that this is more about the Toronto Maple Leafs, but I think the Bruins deserve also some credit for positioning themselves properly throughout this entire sequence. Now, the play starts and ends in Toronto zone. Myers attempts to slide the puck up the boards to Dakota Joshua, who cycles back towards Stars, only to be met by a pestering stick from Pavle Zaka, who was all over the ice that game. Zaka forces the puck off of Joshua’s stick where it squirts out into the slot. Now, Myers and Benois are the first people to see the puck and likely either of them should have grabbed this or at least dumped it back into the corner. And in all fairness, I think that Benois sees Arvinson in the slot and maybe thinks for a second that if he can just bump him enough to take him out of the play that the Leafs will be safe. However, again, like I said, not giving up on the play, Arvvinson gets around Benois just enough to chop the puck at the net and have it sneak by Stallars. This is an example of when grit and maybe effort comes in over talent. Something that the Bruins really needed from this lineup. And Ardinson, a player who struggled last year and some people criticized the Bruins for trading for, has actually shown a lot of this throughout his short time with the Bruins. And I think that this is one of those impressive goals that maybe doesn’t look the nicest or maybe doesn’t require the most skills, but really does make a difference in the end when we’re talking about a team that needs to win by those small margins. And this last goal we’re going to look at comes from none other than former Leaf Frasier Minton. And I swear this isn’t a hate video on the Maple Leafs. This is just the last game that I watched from them that really showed me all of the levels to this Bruins offense. And I think it’s the perfect way for me to show you guys what I’m talking about for the purpose of this video. At this point, the game is 4-3 following a kneeer shot that nearly tied the game. Went crossbar to post and then out. Really, the Bruins were just trying to stay alive after this one in a very tight matchup. Boston gets the puck out of their own zone and now it’s Jano and Minton driving play. The two skate up and Minton dumps the puck while Jano chases, not being able to corral the puck along the boards. But again, this is where Boston sticks with the play thanks to their high energy pressure to force a turnover from Lorent at the blue line, who for some reason was trying to make a very ill-advised pass across the Leaf’s own blue line instead of just simply well getting the puck out of their own zone. Castellic is the player to watch here. He hovers on the blue line, steals the puck, and creates space. Very important play from him. He then sends the puck across to Minton, who waits just a half second for Hilde to slide down on his belly, where he then roofs it so high on the top shelf that even Grandma can’t reach those cookies, giving Boston a 53 lead and icing the game against Toronto. This game and the examples I just provided you are the biggest reasons for Boston’s offensive successes. They understand that there’s a talent gap. They’re not trying to match teams like Toronto. Instead, they’re playing tough, physical, hard-nosed hockey, getting into the dirty areas, and scoring some pretty gritty goals that allow them to come through in some of these tough moments. And that is now translating onto the scoreboard and translating in the win column, which is all you can really ask for from this group. Now, let’s get into the second half of this video. Is all of this going to be sustainable for Boston? and is it a good or bad thing or maybe even both for this team to be winning hockey games? Now, there’s a quote that I think perfectly describes the ceiling for Boston this year. Hard work and a little bit of talent wins championships. And if you don’t have that talent, hard work can still get things done. So, while I don’t believe Boston is anywhere close to a championship caliber team, I do believe that they have some horses in this lineup that can compete for at least a playoff spot and maybe, just maybe, win perhaps a series or two. That’s a ceiling though. Floor, they could still be a bottom of the league team drafting in the lottery again. And we all know things can flip pretty quickly in this league. But what I have to say about this team is that they’ve shown me a lot during this stretch. They’ve shown me that they can work hard and that they have a lot of perseverance. And I think that that speaks volumes to the culture that is built in that organization. So, the good and the bad. Let’s start with the good. I think it’s good for Boston to win because I think culture is important in this league. actually think that it’s one of the more underrated things that isn’t talked about enough. Way too often do we see teams go to the top of the draft and take five to 10 years to get out of that and get themselves back into the playoffs. Now, some of those teams like Anaheim and Chicago, they’re finally seeing some successes from that drafting. While other teams like say Buffalo, they’re on a 14-year skid and have had to go through multiple rebuilds to even get the amount of talent that they have today and still they’re struggling. So for Boston, they’re in a unique position where they have players in their prime who like Poshock, we all consider to be top 10 players in this league. And I don’t think that they’re ready to give up on this team or their chance at getting a cup with Boston. I just don’t think we’re at that point yet. So for Boston right now, you have a few prospects, not many, but you have a few prospects who could really help you turn things around. You drafted James Hagens very high this year. if he could eventually become your topline center and play with David Poshnock and Morgan Geeki, that’s a pretty solid top line. And even a guy like Matthew Potra, he’s shown us flashes in the past. If he can get back to playing at that level, he’s doing really well in Providence right now despite not playing for the uh big league club. I think that if he can get back in this lineup and inject some youth energy into their top six, add a free agent here and there, I think that Boston could put themselves back into contention and actually be a legitimate threat from the East. Now, is this going to happen overnight? Obviously not. We all know that this Bruins team still has their problems, but two to three years from now, would you rather have a completely new roster with Hagens and Potra in a losing franchise, or would you rather have them come into the current wellestablished culture that the Bruins are building and immediately find some success with this group? Personally, I don’t really believe in the whole rebuild, tear it all down thing. I think that this team would be better off to keep winning hockey games and bring those guys up properly developing them. But that’s just me. Now, there is an entirely different side to all of this, the bad side to why winning games is not good for the Bruins. Now, I mentioned it with the good, so I have to mention it with the bad. Assuming that your drafted players are going to reach their very highest ceiling, it’s it’s kind of fool’s gold. Yes, James Hagens is a very talented player, but we’ve never seen him play in the NHL. So, how do we know that he’s going to become that elite topline center to play with Poshok? We just don’t. And same could be said with Potra. There’s a reason why the Bruins don’t have him with the big league club right now. Whatever that might be, he’s not playing with them. And there’s probably something that they’re seeing that they just don’t like. So, for me to immediately say that he’s going to be a top six player, that’s a little bit too positive perhaps. And I think that there’s another side to the whole winning thing that maybe Bruins fans are scared of. And there’s two sides of this from the fan base. There’s the people who don’t like their current management group and Don Sweeney and the people who respect what they’ve done and really don’t mind him. I’m going to speak for the people who don’t like Don Sweeney real quick. For the Bruins to lose and get high draft picks, it’s easier for Don Sweeney to just take the best available player. But when they’re maybe a just outside of the playoff wildcard team, it’s going to be a lot more challenging for him to select a player around that 16 to 20 spot than it would be for him to select a top 10 player. which means that we are really relying on his skills and their whole scouting system to pick the correct player to keep this retool going. Whereas the rebuild, it’s just a lot easier for management to do that. And I think that a lot of Bruins fans have just lost faith in Don Sweeny’s capabilities of drafting. And for previous reasons that I’m not going to get into, I think that they have I don’t know, they’re justified in that sort of take. So, the bad thing would be if you keep winning, you then have to trust Don Sweeney to take draft picks at a more vulnerable position. And that could be kind of crushing for the fan base if he makes the wrong choice and set their rebuild back even further or retool back even further. But the good side is, yeah, they’re winning. They have a strong culture and if they can just get their current prospects to play to even remotely close to their ceiling, then they’ll be in a good position. But that’s what I got on the Bruins today. Team looks really good. Obviously, there’s some uncertainties about their future, and I think the fan base is feeling a little bit divided right now on the direction of this team, but I want to hear from you guys. What do you think about this Boston Bruins team? Do you like that they’re winning hockey games, or would you rather see them going more into a tank to get a highquality player like Gavin McKenna or just get themselves into the lottery and finally enter a rebuild so maybe, just maybe, they could have a chance of winning with some of these players and this core. Drop your thoughts in the comments below. as always. And if you enjoyed this video, be sure to give it a thumbs up and subscribe. Now, I also have a few other pieces of content for you guys to check out here on the screen if you’re bored and want to watch more hockey stuff. And again, thank you guys so much for watching the channel and supporting everything that I do. I will see you in the next upload.

The Boston Bruins are officially back! After a rollercoaster start to their season the Boston Bruins have now won 7 straight games including two against the Toronto Maple Leafs one of which included David Pastrnaks 400th goal of his career. Today let’s talk about this unexpected start for the Boston Bruins, how they are finding success, and whether or not winning is good or bad for the franchise. Subscribe to Jimmy Hockey for more NHL News and Breakdowns.

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