The Bruins haven’t had much of an issue when it comes to starting on time this season.
Whether it be regularly scheduled puck drops at 7 p.m. or those tricky 1 p.m. matinees, the opening 20 minutes of regulation have rarely seen Boston behind the eight ball. It’s been a luxury for Bruce Cassidy and his staff, with a 5-1-0 record attesting to Boston’s track record of seizing control of a contest in the early going — giving an already stout netminder corps even more breathing room.
Boston’s win over the Ducks on Monday afternoon was par for the course when assessing the Bruins’ efforts in the first period.
A power-play tally from David Pastrnak just 4:18 into the matchup stood as the only punch that the Bruins were able to land against Anaheim, but Boston primarily kept their opponent on the ropes for the majority of the first — with the Ducks only landing one shot on goal through the first 10 minutes and entering the first intermission with just five SOG in 17:27 of 5v5 TOI.
Through six games this season, Boston has made a habit of tilting the ice in its favor from the opening puck drop — with 10 of their 16 goals scored this season occurring within the first period of play.
“I think we’ve established some leads here early on,” Cassidy said. “Our first periods have been terrific, we’re starting on time.
"You’re going to naturally have a push from the other team.”
Such was the case on Monday afternoon — continuing a concerning trend in which Boston has often found itself at the mercy of the competition upon taking to the ice again in the middle stanza.
Given the numbers, it stands as a minor miracle that Boston was able to return to its locker room after 40 minutes on Monday with a 2-1 lead. Most of that can be chalked up to the play of Jaroslav Halak in net, because the the B's netminder was put to the test early and often in the second period behind a furious counterattack from the Ducks.
A pushback was to be expected, but the Ducks uncorked haymakers for most of the 20-minute stretch, generating an absurd 10 high-danger scoring chances in the second period alone. For reference, the Bruins have surrendered nine high-danger scoring chances or fewer in four entire games so far this year (against Colorado, Dallas, Vegas and New Jersey).
Even if Boston has managed to hold a 4-3 edge in goals scored during the second period of play so far this year, Cassidy was quick to note that things need to be tightened up — as the B's strong start in '19-20 could easy be turned on its head if not for the strong play of both Halak and Tuukka Rask in net through the first two weeks.
"We’ve got to get a little more into work mode in those second periods, focus on — it’s early in the year, maybe are we thinking it’s going to be an easy game? Are we not ready for the pushback to a certain extent because we’ve had the leads? It’s a bit of everything," Cassidy said. "I think it’s normal around the league, a team gets a first period lead, usually the other team is going to give you some problems in the second period. But we do have to correct it. Tonight was an exceptionally poor second period. We’ve had some stretches, in Dallas and Arizona, where we’ve had the lead, but tonight was probably the worst of our leads where we just sort of lost our urgency all over the ice."
With 5v5 goals-saved above average marks of 3.28 and 2.06 for Rask and Halak, respectively, through six games, the Bruins have often been bailed out when they've let games get away from them, especially in the second period. Preventing five more goals than what an "average" netminder would is already quite a hefty total for this duo, and stands as the top reason for Boston's early success.
Thanks to Halak and Rask's efforts, Boston may have only given three goals against in the second period this season, but during that stretch, the Bruins are a minus-19 in terms of shots on goal (77 to 58).
The numbers during 5v5 play are also concerning:
- Opponents hold a 97-78 lead over the Bruins in shot attempts during the second period
- In terms of high-danger scoring chances, opponents hold a commanding 25-8 edge during the second period
Stats and graphs via Natural Stat Trick and Corsica.