The Bruins had few qualms in the minutes following their 4-2 victory over the Maple Leafs back on October 22.
Boston’s tried-and-true big guns up front did most of the heavy lifting in the first 40 minutes of the contest off of tallies from David Pastrnak and Brad Marchand — while a pair of UFA pickups in Brett Ritchie and Par Lindholm lit the lamp in the final stanza to help the B’s open the year with a 6-1-2 start.
Ritchie and Lindholm’s goals — both 5v5 strikes — were, in particular, a reassuring sight for Bruce Cassidy and the Bruins, given the club’s top-heavy structure when it comes to reliable drivers of offense so far in 2019-20.
Still, a bit of a deeper dive at the numbers highlighted just how much Boston’s offensive attack still had room to grow, even if more and more players in the bottom-six started pulling their own weight.
Over the last couple of seasons, Boston has had the luxury of a dominant first line and a top-five power play unit to bail it out during stretches in which the rest of the offense started to stagnate. Such was the case this over the first three weeks of this season, but across the lineup, high-danger scoring chances (HDCF) were still often few and far between during the course of 5v5 action.
Even as the likes of Marchand and Pastrnak were piling on points at an absurd rate, the Bruins’ 5v5 HDCF rate per 60 minutes of play actually ranked 24th in the NHL through the first nine games of the year.
But over the last three games alone, Boston’s HDCF/60 has gone from 8.5 all the way up to 9.79 — good for 12th overall in the league.
So what's changed as of late that's allowed the Bruins to start generating quality, Grade-A looks during 5v5 play?
Using the Blues, Rangers and Sharks as punching bags certainly helps — as the B's bested their last three opponents by a combined score of 15-5 while holding a 108-72 edge in shots on goal and generating 29 high-danger scoring bids during 5v5 play.
Players such as Brett Ritchie (nine individual hi-danger chances) and Chris Wagner (six individual hi-danger chances) turning the corner have helped Boston start to land some more punches on offense, but it's tough to ignore the type of lift that Anders Bjork has provided since getting called up last week.
Even if he's shifted all over the lineup since then, one wouldn't exactly expect the winger to necessarily drive offense when sandwiched on the fourth line against Toronto and later on a hodgepodge grouping with Par Lindholm and Danton Heinen. But Bjork has positively impacted his club wherever Cassidy has placed him, and that goes far beyond the bullet he blasted against the Blues on Saturday.
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Already a fleet-footed skater, Bjork's added strength this season has made him very valuable as the F1 (or first man in) on the forecheck, with the winger able to recover and retrieve pucks while winning battles along the boards that a younger version of himself likely would not be able to do. With Bjork's strides allowing him to help extend O-zone time, the Bruins have been absolutely dominant over the 40:13 of 5v5 TOI that he has logged through four games.
Over that stretch of time with Bjork on the ice, the Bruins have held the edge in:
- 5v5 shot attempts: 36-26 (A Corsi-For Percentage of 58.06)
- 5v5 shots on goal: 23-12
- 5v5 scoring chances: 20-9
- 5v5 hi-danger scoring chances: 10-1
Stats and graphs via Natural Stat Trick, and Sean Tierney.