5 Things the Boston Bruins Must Improve for a Good Playoff Run
Needs Improvement
The Boston Bruins aren’t exactly the most beastly-looking team heading into the 2013 playoffs. They lost all but three of their final 10 games, basically flopping around in the last stretch of the regular season. Their inability to win the Northeast Division title, despite being given approximately 497 chances to do so, was so protracted that it eventually became the subject of jokes. In the end, they didn’t win the title and pulled the Toronto Maple Leafs in the first round of the playoffs.
This is a dangerous matchup for a few different reasons, chief among them the fact that the Maple Leafs are this year’s Cinderella story. Everyone loves a good Cinderella story and the fact that Toronto last made the playoffs two lockouts ago, before the widespread advent of high-definition television and in the infancy of Facebook, makes this one heck of a rags-to-riches saga.
But there are some problems on the Boston squad that have been there for quite some time. They became more noticeable and pronounced recently in the Bruins’ final gasp to a less-than-ideal finish, though. In pretty much every interview leading up to the start of the playoff series tomorrow night, the Bruins seem eager to jump on the fresh start that the playoffs will afford them. (I likened it to a talented student failing a class and then getting really excited about summer school.)
If they really do want to shrug off the less-than-stellar season that preceded it and get back to their best in the postseason, here are five things that need to change or improve to ensure a long run. Summer school is in session!
The penalty kill
Suggesting that this team could turn around its abysmal power play would, at this point, require an act of Congress to make something actually happen—and Congress doesn’t move fast at all.
So, why not focus on the other side of things and on how to do well when being down a man? Remember earlier in the season when the Bruins killed off a hugely long string of penalties and led the entire league in the penalty kill? Those days are gone now for some odd reason, but it’s not too late for Boston to get back to penalty killing prowess. Toronto’s power play is only about four percent more efficient than Boston’s, after all.
Daniel Paille is pictured here because he and Brad Marchand led the team in shorthanded goals this season.
Milan improvement
The lackluster Milan Lucic was showing some promising signs of life as the season ended. He’d remembered how to hit people again, he’d remembered how to score goals and to assist again—the first-liner, who once sunk so far that he was practicing on a spare fifth line, was actually starting to look like himself again. But his record this season is far worse than last year or the championship one preceding it.
He’s not the only Bruin who could stand to improve. My Festivus “airing of the grievances” list of guys in the Spoked B who haven’t been their best this shortened season include Andrew Ference (pretty much since January), Zdeno Chara (as of late), Brad Marchand (started strong but faded out) and Rich Peverley (only tiny flashes of brilliance).
Be considerate of Tuukka
Claude Julien likes to use one goalie in the playoffs. It’s kind of his modus operandi. In the year before last, Tuukka Rask never saw a single shard of play time en route to the Stanley Cup, though he was always there just in case. Well, now it’s his time to shine, to continue having the incredible season he’s been having (even during the bad times for the team in front of him) and the one that should at the very least earn him a Vezina Trophy nomination.
So, the team in front of him needs to help him out a little bit. His entire future with the team isn’t riding solely on how he performs in the postseason—his impressive regular season, capped off with first star of the season team honors, should help him earn a new contract—but could the team please stop hanging him out to dry all the time?
Actually score
On the other end of helping out Tuukka comes the team’s desire, and responsibility, to actually put the biscuit in the basket. By the time the puck drops on Game 1, it will have been three weeks since the Bruins managed to score more than three goals in a single game. They scored a threefer just once in that three-week span, though. More often than not in that time, they scored just two, whether or not they won. The scoring can come from anywhere, as we’ve seen during the season (did anyone think Daniel Paille would be among the team’s top scorers?), but it needs to happen and it needs to happen a lot.
Uphold the reputation
They’re known as the Big Bad Bruins for a reason, but Toronto has bulked up their lineup as well and are itching to prove themselves. Don’t expect a lot of knock-down, drag-out fights unless things get really hairy, but the Bruins could stand to assert themselves physically more than they have this season. Just let the Leafs know who they’re up against, really.
There are also some interweaving storylines between these two teams—yes, we all know the old chestnut that is the Phil Kessel saga (and now two-thirds of the guys Boston got for him are in the lineup), but Rask is probably going to want to do his best against the team that drafted him and then let him go before he ever played a game in blue and white, for example.
There’s been a lack of heart and grit among the Bruins at times, but if there’s any time for them to be the best of the Big Bad Bruins, it’s now.
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