Why the Boston Bruins OVER/UNDER Projection is TOO LOW!

Why the Boston Bruins OVER/UNDER Projection is TOO LOW!

The overunder for the Boston Bruins this season has been set at 80.5 points. That could be seen as both totally fair but also underestimating the black and gold. You’re Locked on Bruins, your daily podcast on the Boston Bruins, part of the Locked On podcast network. Your team every day. 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, August 7th. Thank you so much for making Lockdown Bruins your first listen every day. It’s part of the Lockdown podcast network your team every day. And today’s episode is brought to you by FanDuel. Right now, new FanDuel customers can get $150 in bonus bets if your first $5 bet wins. Like I said off the top, today we are going to discuss the overunder that was set by FanDuel for the Boston Bruins this season. 80.5 points, which would be barely a fivepoint improvement over last year’s squad. And I’m going to discuss the reasons why that they could go under or over. We’re going to go yay or nay, over under. And uh going to make an argument for both, as well as touch on Pavle Zaka being featured in the away uh video for the uh jerseys released yesterday and what that might indicate about his standing with the team amid some trade reports and rumors this summer. Before we get into all that, a quick reminder. You can find the podcast on social media, locked NHL Bruins. That’s on X, Blue Sky, Instagram, Threads, Tik Tok. You can find me, my hockey thoughts and dad jokes at Ian C McLaren. I’m a lifelong Boston Bruins fan and I’ve been covering this team for various outlets for 20 years. And it’s been that long since the Bruins have had back-to-back poor seasons. You have to go back to 2005, 2006 where they had 74 points and then 2006, 2007 where they had 76 points. Never since then in a full season have they had fewer than 80 points. 2010 or sorry 2021 they had 73 points but that was in 56 games. Lockout shortened season as well. Uh they actually in a full season haven’t had fewer than 90 points since that time. 91 points in 2009 2010. So, the projections are putting them to have back-to-back poor seasons for the first time in Yeah. like 20 years, which is kind of the era that we’re in, right? No Patrice Berseron, no Brad Marshon, nobody’s walking in to save this team. And one of the reasons why you can easily say that they will go under is because of their contract efficiency. They’re just not getting value for the money that they’re spending. And the Athletic the other day put out their contract efficiency rankings for 2025, figuring out every player’s market value over the remainder of their contract, comparing it to what they’re actually being paid, and figuring out the likelihood of the contract being a good deal. um doesn’t include ELC’s, but it includes like core players that are in the mix for the next several years. And if you look at the Boston Bruins, they rank 50 or sorry, 25th on this list, down from 15 last season. And Domician writes, “It should be difficult for a team to land this low with a contract as good as David Postronox, but the Bruins have seemingly made it a mission over the last two off seasons. Trading for Casey Middlestat, Andrew Peak, and Unis Corbasal hurt the bottom line at all three positions. signing Elias Lindholm, Tanner Jano, and Nikita Zadorov only inflicted more pain on top of that with the recent Jano deal being the most egregious. It’s possible that bouncebacks and good health from Charlie Makavoy and Hus Lynthome can get things back on track. We’ll touch on that later. And the model already expects that for Jeremy Swayman thanks to his age. But the Bruins have inflicted too much damage on themselves otherwise to expect this to be an above average cap sheet going forward. Right now they have David Patron, Morgan Geeki, Pavl Zaka and Michael Esimont as the only positive value forwards. That means that if you look at each other player’s contract, you’re not going to get value that you expect out of them at their deals. And especially uh Tanner Jano, 3.4 million over five years. His model value is around an $800,000 player. Elias Lindhome 5.3 million. He’s being paid 7.8 million. And that’s the same for Shanker Ali, Casey Middlestat, Mark Castick, John Beecher, Victor Arvitson. Only uh Posge, Geeki, Zaka, and Esimont are giving you positive value upfront. Now, of course, this doesn’t include ELC. So perhaps Matt Potra, Fraser Minton can come in and get some positive value up front, but it’s not looking too good there up uh for the Boston Bruins. They’ve had a bunch of money to spend over the last couple off seasons and they used it to sign Elias Lindholm who providing Dgrade value so far according to the Athletic. Uh, and then you added a bunch of middle or sorry bottom six forwards like Jano who’s got D-grade value. Shankari C minus grade value. Um, Esimont B minus. He’s positive. Uh, I should add Arvitzen is about pretty much at even value. Uh, 49.3% positive value. So, he could provide a boost. Then on the back end you have Hamus Leno, Charlie Makavoy providing positive value. Henry Yoki Haru basically at 50% as is Mason Laurai his contract 3.2 2 million over two years. slightly overvalued uh but getting negative value out of Andrew Peak and especially Nikita Zadorov who is giving you 23.1% positive value 25.1% from Andrew Peak in net getting positive value from Jeremy Swayman hopefully moving forward didn’t last season but not from unis basalo even at the 3 million that he’s making with the 25% % retained by the Bruins. What does this all mean? Well, this team is made up of a bunch of players who are not landing where they’re being valued by the Boston Bruins. The perfect example of this is you look at uh Elias Lindholm, right? $7.8 million for the next six years. If you look at uh the New Jersey Devils, they’ve got Jack Hughes signed for the next five years at $8 million, which is arguably the best contract in the NHL. Maybe it was foolish of him to sign that at the time knowing that the cap might have been going up and he’s a superstar level player, but $200,000 separating Jack Hughes and Elias Lynome and you can go up and down the list for the Bruins and see guys who will not um according to this model anyways meet their value. I’m hopeful about Casey Middlestat uh for one. Uh but if you look at the projected top six, you have Pasha Geeki with Lindholm who is 75 17.5% positive value. You look at uh Zaka with Arvdson and Middlestat only Zaka bringing positive value there. Overall, you look at this team and you’re just not getting positive value out of the contracts signed by Don Sweeney recently. And that is one of the reasons why the main reason why you can say that this team will not rise above their station from one season ago. It’s as simple as that. You have players signed two contracts that do not match the value that they’re bringing and it’s negative value that they’re bringing to the table. Uh, so you’re overpaying for players basically that aren’t providing the kind of production that you need to be a successful hockey team. So that’s kind of the argument for the Bruins being under 80 points once again this season. But you could look at it half full and argue that the Bruins will be improved this upcoming season. and we’ll touch on that here as the podcast continues. Summer sports are in full swing and whether you’re all about baseball under the lights, golf on the green, or high stakes soccer action, FanDuel’s the best way to make every game even more exciting. You’re already following the action. Why not make it a little more thrilling? With FanDuel, you can get in on the game while your friends are getting sunburned at the beach. It’s easy to use, fast to pay out, makes even regular season games feel like mustwatch events. Whether I’m placed in a same game parlay or watching a bet ride into the ninth, FanDuel makes it feel like you’re part of the action. For new to FanDuel, new customers can bet just $5 and get $150 in bonus bets if that first bet wins. Open the FanDuel app today or visit fanuel.com to get started. I’ve made a clear argument for why the Bruins will be under 80 points once again this season, which may not be the worst thing in the world seeing as Gavin McKenna will be on the table as the number one draft pick. But it all comes down to contract value and the Bruins have Elias Lynhome, Nikita Zidorov, uh Casey Middlestat, guys that they’re going to rely upon in key roles who perhaps aren’t going to bring full value for the contracts that they have signed or are signed to in Middlestat’s case. But there is a case to be made that the Bruins will be improved this upcoming season. And it starts from the back out. Jeremy Swayman was, let’s be honest, pretty abysmal last season. His save percentage was like uh well under his career average. and whether it was a result of the elongated contract discussions, uh the hold over from arbitration and just not being in the right spot mentally to begin the season. No training camp, no exhibition games, didn’t even play in the season opener and then thrown into the starters role. It’s all part of it. and he by his own admission did not have a great season. Nobody thinks uh he looked that great for any length of time. But that’s not the Jeremy Swayman we know, right? We know him to be an exceptional goalender. All you have to do is look back to the 2024 Stanley Cup playoffs where he was unbelievable against both the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Florida Panthers. He’s the kind of player who can and should and dare I say will bounce back and live up to the numbers that he posted before his contract and perhaps at least be back in like top 10 goalender conversation. If you look back at that 2024 team, Brad Marshon’s missing, Brandon Carlo, Charlie Coyer gone, but I don’t know if they’re like that much worse than that team. Uh yeah, they had uh significant contributions from Zaka and Coyle like career years, but you still have some guys on this roster that if you look at Lindholm and Middlestat, well, we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s start with the goalending, then move to defense. And the Athletic mentioned it right in their article. Last season, the Bruins were without Hampas Lindholm for the majority of the season. Charlie Makavoy for a good chunk of things following the Four Nations faceoff. You take your top two defenseman off any team in the NHL and you’re going to struggle. It’s as simple as that. And not only do these guys play a prominent role in their own zones, locking things down, zone exits, protecting the goalender, uh being smart with the puck, but they play significant roles offensively as well. Charlie Makavoy quarterback in the power play. Hampus Lindholm was getting an opportunity in that spot prior to his injury with the power play sputtering a little bit. If you’re having Mason Lauri carry the majority of your minutes on any given night in his first full NHL season, I mean, you’re going to struggle. And that’s just the reality for the Bruins last season. With those two guys healthy, you are going to get more support for Jeremy Swimman and it will allow him to excel in net once again. So having those two defenseman back should help the goalending and Swimman just being better. You can’t get much worse than he was last season. that will kind of ease the pressure off the defense as well to have to lock down every elite player who enters the zone. So, those are two huge reasons why the Bruins should be at least five points better than they were last season. And that’s all they need to do to get over the overunder hump. You add to that the uh presence of David Apostron who is one of the best players in the NHL making 11.3 million for the next six years and the model for the athletic values him at 14.1 million which is more than Leonid is making as the top paid player in the NHL this season. Morgan Geeki signed for 5.5 million. They value him at around 7 million. Pavl Zaka is valued at 5.8 which is 1 million more than what he’s making. Maybe they get something out of Michael Esimont as well. Uh he’s signed for 1.5. They value him at around 1.9. Victor Arvdson should come in and provide a big scoring boost in the top six. And then I mean look, you look at the bottom six, very few teams in the NHL these days get true positive value out of their bottom six. You look at the Edmonton Oilers, they have five forwards giving them positive value. You look at the number one team in Tampa. I mean, they have a ton of players giving positive value, but even the Panthers, Hurricanes have several players who are going to give you negative value. Well, actually, only Marshon and Bennett apparently are going to give them negative value. They value Marshon at 3 million. He’s making 5.3. Bennett’s valued at 5.5. He’s making 8 million. Anyways, all that to say, I think the Bruins will be better than they were last season. And I do think they’re kind of undervaluing Casey Middlestat. Yet, he had back-to back 50 plus point seasons with the Colorado Avalanche. Yes, that was playing um not a huge role on that team as it’s going to be led by Nathan McKinnon, but he’s not being called upon here to be a topline center. second liner, perhaps a third liner. He should be able to develop on his pretty good pedigree as a top 10 draft pick and he’s still fairly young. I think there is more from him that we could see this season. Uh I think Henry Yoki Haru coming back to pair with Nikita Zidorov is going to help if Zidorov can stay out of the box, fight less. That was one of the reasons why they signed Jano. That will be a benefit to the Bruins. I think they have a pretty solid top six here in Lindholm, Makavoy, Yoki, Haru, Lurai, Peak, and Zidorov. And then you have Sstrom, Jordan Harris waiting in the wings as well. It all I think comes down to Jeremy Swayman. If he can even get back to 900 plus save percentage, this team will be much improved over last year. I’m not expecting much from Tener Jano. Shankar Ali, uh, Michael Esteimont really John Becher is what he is. Mark Castelick is what he is. um Elias Lindholm. If he can ride shotgun with Pos and Geeki, I think he’ll have a much better season than he did last year. And I’ve said everydayers will remember many times that I think Zidorov and Lindholm will feel much more comfortable in Boston this season than they did coming in last year as new guys to whom the Bruins have committed long term. coming into a new city, a new team, a new system. Not to mention throw a coaching change in there. The stability of having Marco Sturm for an entire season will help as well. The Bruins navigated through Jim Montgomery to Joe Sacko. Just so many things went wrong last season for the Boston Bruins. And if I’m putting down that $5 to get that $150 in bonus bets, I’m going with the over on the Bruins because of Jeremy Swayman health for Makavoy and Lindholm. Uh yeah, the addition of Victor Arvitz in the chemistry displayed between Geeky and Past put Lindholm up there. You can get better value out of him while he’s riding shotgun between those two guys. I think middle stat has another level to hit and hopefully also Matt Patra Fraser Minton can come in and give the Bruins good value on their ELC’s. So I’m going with the over. And before we finish today, I just wanted to touch on Pavloaka and his presence in the away jersey uh feature video yesterday. What does that mean amid ongoing reports that he might be traded? We’ll touch on that here as the podcast continues. As recently as a couple weeks ago, the Bruins were still mulling the possibility of trading forward Pavlzaka. This is according to David Pagnata of the fourth period who listed the Canucks and Mammoth as teams that have been softly linked to his availability. Apparently, Sweeney considered moving Zaka during their selloff at the deadline, but ended up holding on to him, choosing to flip Carlo Coyle Marshand for assets instead. uh if they do go the that route, the type of return they might be looking for will speak volumes about the team’s expectations for this season, right? They’re already light on offensive firepower hopefully middle stat and Lindholm, but um trading Zaka whose offensive production did take a step back this past season. A lot of people did. Uh he had back-to-back seasons of 20 goals and 50 points, but only 14 and 47 in all 82 games this past season while riding shotgun with Geeki and Pastro for most of the season. He’s averaged 54 points per 82 games over his three years in Boston. Such a great trade to get him for Erica, by the way. Um hasn’t been a huge amount of year-to-year variation. trade value probably won’t go up much higher than it is now with two full years left under a contract at a pretty reasonable price tag. Now again, I urge you always to consider the source when we discuss these kind of things. Uh, no major hockey insiders necessarily jumping on this, but it’s worth noting that yesterday the Bruins dropped a social media video that showed off the new Bruins road uniforms. And the two players that they chose to model these, zip around on them were Mason Lauri and Pavalzaka. In the jersey reveal video, we saw that both Makavoy and Post were wearing A’s and that led us or put the two and two together and Charlie Makavoy confirmed it. It looks as though they’re going to go with two assistants to begin the season instead of uh one captain. So, that video was revoly. When it comes to the addition of Zaka in this promo, similar to Casey Middlestat being featured in the Bear Tracks uh segment earlier this off season, it seems to indicate to me that he is going to be around. Why would you feature a player in this video if you’re going to trade him like the next day? You’re wanting to build excitement about the team. You’re wanting to build uh some hope to get fans interested in the new look, which by the way is unbelievable. I am so excited to see the Bruins in these jerseys this upcoming season. Uh Pavo Zaka, no mistake, I don’t think that he was featured in this video. You could have picked any player. You could have picked Morgan Geeki to go with Mason Laurai. They went with Zaka. And that to me is an indication that he is going to be around for this upcoming season. And like I said earlier, if they trade him, it would indicate that they’re not trying to be as competitive this season depending on the return. You could argue that the Bruins would I wouldn’t say h be happy, but if they have an opportunity to draft Gavin McKenna next summer wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. But at the same time, you’re wanting to a keep fans interested, keep fans in the seats, keep fans buying merch, and by putting Zaka in that position and then going ahead and trading him and diminishing the roster wouldn’t make a ton of sense uh in my mind. And I think the Bruins are not, you know, dead set on getting back to contender status. or maybe they are. That’s their motivation, but that’s not the reality of this roster this upcoming season. But you can bet that they’re at least trying to make a push to get back into wildcard contention just to keep us interested, keep fans engaged. Uh the worst thing that could happen is apathy for this club. uh because then you know people are hate watching that’s still a positive for the Bruins cuz they’re still getting those numbers. If they’re exceeding expectations that’s the best case scenario. But if you have people who just stop caring that’s the worst thing because you could end up losing those fans uh you know permanently and then and them not coming back. So, the Bruins need us to stay engaged as fans and trading Pavlo Zaka for futures or draft picks right now uh would send the wrong message. And I think they’re sending a message by including him in this video that he is indeed going to be around. Could be proven wrong. They could trade him today. We’ll see. You’re going to want to keep it locked to locked on Boston Bruins for all the latest with respect to the Black and Gold. Uh I’m heading into Toronto tonight to see the Frey, their 20th anniversary concert. Very excited about that, but I’ll be back tomorrow to bring you all the latest on the black and gold. Don’t forget to check out the Locked On NHL podcast next leaguewide stories from our local analysts and experts. It’s available on the Locked On NHL YouTube channel and wherever you get podcasts. Please do take care of yourselves, friends. Take care of each other. Subscribe to Locked On Bruins on your favorite podcast app and on YouTube. And we’ll talk to you here again on the next episode of Locked On Boston Bruins.

Ian McLaren hosts the Locked On Bruins podcast, discussing the team’s over/under point projection of 80.5 for the upcoming season. He analyzes the Bruins’ contract efficiency, highlighting concerns with recent signings like Elias Lindholm and Tanner Jeannot. McLaren argues for potential improvement, citing Jeremy Swayman’s expected bounce-back and the return of key defensemen Charlie McAvoy and Hampus Lindholm. He also touches on Pavel Zacha’s inclusion in a jersey reveal video, suggesting the forward may remain with the team despite trade rumors. The episode provides a balanced look at the Bruins’ prospects for the 2025-26 season.

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