The Boston Bruins season may be young, but there are already some positive trends beginning to form.
What happens in October shouldn’t be over analyzed as teams are still establishing an identity, but if these four trends continue, this Bruins campaign should give Boston fans a lot to be excited about.
Brad Marchand playing at an elite level
When your best player is playing at his best, odds are your team is in a pretty good spot.
Brad Marchand has three goals and five points in the team’s first four games and appears to just be getting started.
The star winger was criticized after a quiet post season last year, but Marchand appears hungry and ready to chase Lord Stanley.
A good start for Anton Khudobin
This offseason much emphasis was put on the fact that Tuukka Rask cannot play 53 games again this year.
Anton Khudobin struggled early on last season and it forced Rask to play far more than the Bruins would have liked.
One game into the young season Khudobin looks as though he will continue the strong play he developed under Bruce Cassidy in the second half of the 2016-17 season.
In his first start of the 2017-18 season, Khudobin allowed two goals on 40 shots.
Young players contributing
The Bruins need production out of their rookies, and while there have been some early growing pains, they have shown a lot of promise, especially Jake Debrusk who has two goals and two assists through four games.
Charlie McAvoy and Bjork have combined four five points as well.
Winning ugly
The Bruins bounced back big time against the Arizona Coyotes, beating them 6-2. The scoreboard may have shown a route, but make no mistake, it started ugly … and that’s okay.
The Bruins trailed 1-0 early until David Pastrank and Zdeno Chara’s deflected goal found the back of the net and flipped momentum.
The NHL season is 82 games long and it is nearly impossible to play perfect in all of them, especially in October.
The Bruins are going to have to live with some ugly patches, especially with a team this young.
Winning when they know they didn’t play a perfect 60 minutes and can improve should be taken as a major confidence boost for the Bs.
One Response
Tuukka played in 65 games game last year