In pretty much every statistical category, the Boston Bruins have exceeded expectations to this point this season.
The Black and Gold currently sit in the top wild card spot in the Eastern Conference, just a couple of days prior to Thanksgiving, and they have scored more than enough over the course of the year, even as the offense came up a tad short in Sunday night’s 3-1 loss to the San Jose Sharks at the SAP Center.
But one problem area for the Bruins this season has been the sheer amount of sin bin visits that they have taken over the course of the season, an issue that’s been pretty consistent from beginning to end this year. And it’s also a chronic problem that dogged this Bruins group under Jim Montgomery over the last few years as well, so it’s not exactly a new problem to this core group of Bruins players.
“We just took too many penalties,” said Elias Lindholm in his first game back from a lower-body injury. “We had the momentum in the second period and we were playing well and then we took too many penalties and it just killed us. It’s hard to win games in his league when you are in the [penalty] box too much.”
The Bruins handed the Sharks six power plays on Sunday night with Mack Celebrini’s power play goal ending up being the difference in the game between the two teams. Even with a penalty kill that currently ranks 11th in the league and has been doing the job killing off 83 percent of the power plays that they face, the Bruins know they are playing with fire in terms of allowing way too many PP opportunities to teams like San Jose or to the Ducks in Anaheim during a loss to start this current road trip.
“Yeah, it’s a good question,” said Marco Sturm, when asked how the Bruins can go about reducing the sheer amount of penalties that they are taking. “We’ve already talked to the group about it a bunch of times. We have to find a way because [taking] five penalties a night…it’s gonna be hard [to win]. It’s gonna be hard [over the season] because players are too good and too skilled on the power play. We have to find a way to correct it.”
On Sunday night, each of the first four penalties called on the Bruins was a tripping call, indicative of a tired team chasing the puck, and not moving their feet to play defense as the B’s do when they are at their best. But it’s not an isolated incident as the Black and Gold lead the NHL in penalties taken (125), minor penalties taken by a wide margin (110 minor penalties taken, which is more than 20 penalties ahead of the second-place team) and rank second in PIMs (308) behind the Calgary Flames while sporting a minus-16 differential in terms of penalties taken versus penalties drawn.
That is not a good formula for a Bruins team hoping to win the special teams battle if they can’t always outdo another team during 5-on-5 play, and also not a favorable trend for a team like Boston that has a tremendously dangerous power play this season. Of course, a healthy portion of the Bruins' penalties minutes/minors called is this year's return to a hard-nosed, don't-take-any-crap, hard-to-play-against style, and it feels like pretty much nobody wants that team trait to go away because a few too many penalties are being called.
But that doesn't excuse the tripping and other stick fouls that tend to happen when a team is using stick-work rather than moving their feet.
One of the lesser-known issues with the penalties taken, of course, is the long periods of time that Boston’s best players are sitting on the bench cooling their heels while PK stalwarts like Sean Kuraly, Mark Kastelic, Tanner Jeannot and Fraser Minten go out and consistently get the penalty kill job done. It leaves guys like David Pastrnak and Morgan Geekie to fall out of rhythm and be removed from the flow of the game, which can make it challenging for them when the Bruins need an infusion of offense like they did on Sunday night against the Sharks.
In particular, the Bruins have been really adept at killing off extended 5-on-3 PPs for their opponents as they did on Sunday night in San Jose, but that is not exactly something you want to be well-practiced in during the regular season.
“You automatically leave your best players on the bench. If you’ve ever played the game before, you need to be in a rhythm and if you’re not then it’s tough to get going again,” said Sturm. “That’s why you can see it in the third [period] where guys are rolling, they are getting some momentum and they are going. But we just couldn’t do it before then because of the penalties, and that’s the difference.
“It’s probably [not moving the] feet and a little bit of stupidity I would say, that’s just the way it is. And we’ve just got to be smarter than that.”
It's a bit of a slippery slope, of course, because some of the penalties are a byproduct of a talent-challenged roster maximizing their potential against deeper, more talented hockey clubs on some night, but other times it looks like teams that just don’t have their best lining up against a team like San Jose with premium skating and skill players all over the ice.
The bottom line is that the B’s are losing the special teams battle in terms of how many opportunities they are giving out versus the opportunities they are getting, and that is something that needs to reversed, or at the very least improved upon to the point where they are getting as many PP chances as they are giving.
If not, that is an area that is going to become problematic as the season rolls on and their reputation gets cemented around the league as a hockey team that lacks discipline in the penalty department.
