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BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS – OCTOBER 08: David Pastrnak #88 of the Boston Bruins celebrates his second goal of the game against the Utah Mammoth during the second period at TD Garden on October 8, 2026 in Boston, Massachusetts. (Photo by Rich Gagnon\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
The Boston Bruins<\/a>\u2018 special teams got off to an awful start. But that trend reversed course in Boston\u2019s win over the Utah Mammoth.<\/p>\n On Thursday, the Bruins finished 3-for-4 on the power play after starting the season 0-for-10<\/a>. David Pastrnak and Morgan Geekie led the charge. Pastrnak finished with two goals and three points on the man advantage. Meanwhile, Geekie recorded one goal and three points.<\/p>\n Via Joe McDonald of NHL.com<\/a>, Pastrnak said, \u201cIt (the power play) gave a huge boost to our game \u2014 big time. Everything was clicking today, and it was a big game for special teams.\u201d<\/p>\n The power play wasn\u2019t the only unit that clicked for Boston. Heading into Thursday night\u2019s showdown with Utah, Boston\u2019s penalty-kill percentage sat at 72.7, one of the lower marks in the league. Then they killed off all seven of Utah\u2019s chances.<\/p>\n Boston Bruins Special Teams Excel On Thursday Night<\/p>\n Here\u2019s more irony: The Mammoth entered Thursday night\u2019s matchup 8-for-13 on the power play, good for a 61.5 power-play percentage. They also allowed just one power-play goal in 14 opportunities. That gave them a 92.8 penalty-kill percentage.<\/p>\n For a team like Boston that has struggled in the power play and penalty kill, Utah was a lock to beat them in the special teams battle. Even more interesting \u2014 Utah\u2019s power-play opportunities nearly doubled Boston\u2019s. That put Boston further behind the eight ball, but they won 10 of 11 battles on special teams.<\/p>\n Boston\u2019s big win on Thursday night is a prime example of how volatile early-season statistics can be. There is nothing set in stone, however. Both of the Bruins\u2019 special teams units can keep struggling, and Utah\u2019s can find their groove in the foreseeable future. Or both units will deviate closer to the median. The latter is often the case in professional sports.<\/p>\n Bruins Have A Reason To Believe The Power Play Will Turn Into A Strength<\/p>\n In 2025-26, the Bruins\u2019 power-play percentage sat at 23.4, good for ninth in the NHL. Even more interesting is that they didn\u2019t do a great job drawing penalties. Boston had 235 power-play opportunities, tying them for 18th in the league.<\/p>\n Through five games in 2026-27, they are on pace to hit that same number. But if the Bruins enjoy a few more games where they\u2019re converting regularly on the power play, it will turn into a strength like it was last season. That said, they still need to learn how to draw more penalties.<\/p>\n Despite finishing 7-for-7 on Thursday night, there is still a reason to exercise cautious optimism for the penalty kill. Boston finished 2025-26 ranked 24th with a 76.98 penalty-kill percentage. They also led the league with 278 power-play opportunities against.<\/p>\n This season, Boston has already been on the penalty kill 18 times, putting them on pace for over 300 in an 84-game span. While that number should also gravitate toward the median, it still indicates the Bruins could threaten to lead the league again in opportunities against.<\/p>\n Should the penalty kill keep playing as it did against Utah, this won\u2019t be as much of a problem. But if it allows nearly one goal every four times it takes the ice, that can cost Boston games. Regardless, its stellar outing vs. Utah could be a game-changer. That may even be more of a case for the power play, considering its recent history.<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tTodd Matthews<\/a> Todd Matthews is a veteran sportswriter with years of experience covering the NHL, NFL, and other major sports. His background includes team-specific coverage, breaking news, analysis, roster developments, player trends, and league-wide storylines. He joined Heavy in 2026 and previously wrote for FanSided. More about Todd Matthews<\/a>\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Getty BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS – OCTOBER 08: David Pastrnak #88 of the Boston Bruins celebrates his second goal of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":682590,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5099],"tags":[154,95,5132,530,5,4],"class_list":["post-682589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boston-bruins","tag-boston","tag-boston-bruins","tag-bostonbruins","tag-bruins","tag-hockey","tag-nhl"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/117411058101423523","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=682589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682589\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/682590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=682589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=682589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=682589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}