There isn’t much to criticize about the Boston Bruins these days. After a brief stumble a few weeks back, they’ve righted the ship with four straight wins by a combined 17-3. They’re back on track to set the all-time wins record and have already clinched a playoff berth. If there’s one thing to nitpick about the Bruins this season, it has been the power play.
The B’s have quietly had some of the worst power play production in the league over the last few months.
For the season as a whole, Boston is 12th in the league in power play scoring at 22.5%. Since January 1st, Boston’s power play has only converted 15.7% of their man-advantage opportunities, which ranks 27th in the league. Narrowing the scope to February 1st and on, the percentage drops to 14.5%. Their cumulative number is heavily buoyed by their 27.6% figure from Opening Night up to the Winter Classic.
It’s an ironic reversal of fortune from Bruce Cassidy’s tenure, when the Bruins were maligned for their struggles to generate offense at even strength, which had been their fatal flaw for years.
According to Moneypuck.com, Boston is the best team in the league in Goals Percentage at 5 on 5. Which is to say the Bruins have scored at the highest rate when both sides are at even strength on the ice. Whereas on the man-advantage they drop down to 11th place.
Boston had scored thirty seven power play goals in their first thirty six games. In the thirty four games since they have only produced seventeen goals, having endured an 0-20 stretch sandwiched around the All-Star game.
The Bruins need to get their power-play going again before the playoffs begin, and the home-stretch brings several teams with a penalty kill below 80% for Boston to put an end to this power outage and find their groove for the playoffs.
