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If the Boston Bruins can find a way to beat the Philadelphia Flyers tomorrow night, they will be an even 3-3-0 on the season and a bit closer towards erasing their minus-3 goal differential.
They will, statistically speaking, be a better club than they are today. But even if that’s not the end result come 10 p.m. tomorrow night, are the Black and Gold improving as time goes on as team president Cam Neely and general manager Don Sweeney alluded to before the puck dropped this year?
“I see us really improving throughout the course of the year,… Neely noted on Media Day. “With the group that we have that’s new and the group that we have that’s returning I’m excited to see us get going in the regular season, but I really believe that we’re going to improve as the season goes along.…
Then again, it wasn’t really hard to improve from the club’s start.
When you looked at the Bruins’ 0-3-0 start -- their first 0-3-0 start since ‘99 and for just the eighth time in the franchise’s 92-year history -- it was a whole lot of nothing going on. Outside of David Pastrnak, Matt Beleskey, David Krejci, and Patrice Bergeron, the Bruins were not getting a thing from their secondary scorers and roleplayers. Now, back in Boston after a successful two-game, two-win road trip through Colorado and Arizona, the Bruins are on the board across the board. (Fourth-line skaters Joonas Kemppainen, Zac Rinaldo, and Max Talbot are the only forwards without at least a point.)
For the B’s, it’s been the work of their power play, which is clicking at a league-best 38.9% success rate, that’s pulled them from the basement. And the power-play contributions of Krejci, who is in a three-way tie with Vladimir Tarasenko and Henrik Zetterberg for the NHL lead in points with nine, too.
Working the point of the B’s first power-play unit opposite Torey Krug, Krejci has struck with five power-play points in as many games this season, and has centered perhaps the Bruins’ best five-on-five line next to the Bergeron line. (At this point, we should just forever assume that the Bergeron line will be Boston’s best line at even-strength so long as he’s their center. Honestly, it’s a given at this point.)
But while the offense can click for days -- the Bruins outscored their opponents 11-to-5 on their road swing -- it’s the Boston defense that remains a work in progress in terms of its chemistry.
With Joe Morrow ailing from a flu that reportedly left him with a 10-pound weight loss and on the injured reserve for the week-long trip, the Bruins turned to former second-round pick Tommy Cross to shore up their defense. The 6-foot-3 Cross has been solid, too, posting a 55.0% CF% in the smallest of sample sizes, along with an assist in Boston’s big win over the Coyotes on Saturday night.
And don’t look now, but two of the Bruins’ most criticized defenders in terms of what they’d be able to bring to the club this season given the team’s desire to have a more up-tempo, quicker transition game out of their own end -- Kevan Miller and Adam McQuaid -- have started the year with solid play in all three zones. They’ll never be the point-getters like Krug, no, but their ability to read and react to the game in the attacking zone has been a pleasant surprise through 300 minutes of play.
(Still, the Bruins need to figure out what works within a six-man defensive unit before Dennis Seidenberg (back surgery) returns to the lineup and throws everything out of whack once again.)
Of course, these good vibes could be absolutely destroyed down to below Boston’s subway system if the Bruins lay another egg on home ice tomorrow night, but for now, it seems that Neely’s right.
It’s that ceiling for improvement, however, that remains as a question mark.
And that’s not changing by way of a .500 record six games into the year.
Ty Anderson has been covering the National Hockey League for HockeyBuzz.com since 2010, has been a member of the Pro Hockey Writers Association's Boston Chapter since 2013, and can be contacted on Twitter, or emailed at Ty.AndersonHB[at]gmail.com.