4 telling stats following Bruins’ statement win over Lightning

In the wake of the Bruins’ impressive 2-1 win over the Lightning on Tuesday night, here are four additional stats that stood out beyond some encouraging performances from David Krejci’s new linemates.  

0.16 - Tampa Bay’s expected goals rate (all strengths) in third period

The first 40 minutes of Tuesday’s Atlantic-Division showdown primarily featured the visitors putting the Bolts on the ropes — with Boston holding on to a 2-1 lead and a commanding 31-14 edge in shots on goal entering the second intermission.

As to be expected, Jon Cooper’s club did what it could to generate a response over the final period of regulation — with Boston primarily treading water in its own zone as the minutes ticked off the scoreboard. 

As far as the puck-possession metrics go, things weren’t all that pretty for Bruce Cassidy’s club — with the Lightning holding a commanding 22-7 edge in shot attempts during the third period. 

However, for as bad the optics looked as Boston spent many shifts hemmed back in its own end — the Bruins’ top-ranked defense still managed to prevent many of those attempts from getting through to Tuukka Rask and the Grade-A areas of the ice.

Aside from a breakaway bid from Anthony Cirelli midway through the frame, the Lightning were primarily held to the outside by a conservative, but stingy Bruins’ defense — with plenty of point shots from Tampa either sailing wide or ricocheting off a skater before they could reach Rask. 

For all disparity when it came to shot attempts, only seven of Tampa’s 22 bids generated a shot on goal, with the Lightning’s expected goals rate of 0.16 a testament to the lack of quality looks the Bolts were able put together in crunch time.

(For Reference: Expected goals accounts for both shot quantity and quality by factoring in multiple shot factors, including the type of shot, distance from the net, angle, 5v5, power play, penalty kill, etc. As such, a player or team with a low expected goal rate means that they aren’t generating good looks when out on the ice.)

“Good sticks, structure was good,” Cassidy said. “Willing to block shots. We kind of stopped moving our feet on the breakout. They did a better job with their D keeping pucks alive, hemming us in. When we did flip a few out, we weren't able to get the forecheck going. We talked about that, they're a good team, a good offensive team. They're going to have a push. Ideally, do you want to spend that much time in your own end? No. But I understand why, you're managing the puck and they're at home.

“They're going to have their push, they happened to have it then. It would have been good if we could have made a couple more plays, but you don’t want to do that at the expense of giving them a good opportunity. So probably a little too conservative, but we know how to defend.”

13-2-1 - Boston’s record in games started by Jeremy Lauzon this season

One of the reasons for Boston’s lockdown efforts down the stretch on Tuesday? The continued strong play of 22-year-old Jeremy Lauzon — who seems to have just about shored up that third D pairing next to Matt Grzelcyk. 



It wasn’t a perfect showing from the youngster, as Mitchell Stephens buried Tampa’s lone goal against a gassed Grzelcyk-Lauzon pairing at 17:28 in the second period. But Lauzon did rebound during the 4:54 of ice time he logged in the third— using his strong frame to both win puck battles behind Boston’s net and tie up opposing skaters and force them outside of Grade-A ice. 

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The additions of Ondrej Kase and Nick Ritchie have given Boston’s middle-six a shot in the arm, while the play of the usual suspects (Pastrnak, Bergeon, Rask, etc.) have sparked Boston’s recent surge over the last couple of weeks. 

But when we eventually look back at the 2019-20 campaign, it’ll be awfully hard to ignore the lift that Boston received as soon Lauzon shored up that vacancy at the bottom of the B’s D corps. He may not be flashy, but Lauzon’s physical, simple style of play has been a welcome addition to a blue line that operates with plenty of pace and playmaking prowess. 

8 - The number of individual shot attempts generated by Charlie McAvoy

Remember the good ol’ days when people thought Charlie McAvoy wasn’t going to light the lamp once this season? 

Well, the young defenseman’s scoring totals have surged back up to the mean after getting saddled with poor puck luck to open the 2019-20 campaign — with McAvoy scoring four goals and recording 11 total points over his last 13 games. 

He may not have beat Andrei Vasilevskiy on Tuesday night, but it wasn’t for a lack of effort — as McAvoy’s eight individual shot attempts led all of Boston’s skaters, while his five individual scoring chances ranked second to only David Pastrnak. 



(A look at McAvoy's individual event map from Tuesday night — a pretty busy night for one of Boston's top defensemen.)

As has been the case for most of the last couple of months now, McAvoy was a force down both ends of the ice on Tuesday, logging a team-high 24:52 in the victory. 

While David Krejci and his line deserve plenty of credit for slowing down Tampa’s big guns in Nikita Kucherov and Brayden Point, the skater that logged the most 5v5 minutes against Kucherov was McAvoy (12:46) — with Boston holding a 9-8 edge in attempts and posting an even 4-4 split in scoring chances during that stretch. 

Impressive stuff from No. 73. 

14.8%: Boston’s success rate on the power play over last 11 games

Boston could have made things easier on itself Tuesday had its second-ranked power-play unit managed to land a few punches against the Bolts. But such wasn’t the case, as the B’s failed to generate much of anything during an 0-3 showing on the man advantage. 

Sluggish entries as of late have hampered what has arguably been Boston’s top source of offense all season, with aggressive PK units like Tampa succeeding at disrupting the Bruins before they can even get set up in the O-zone. 

Cassidy noted that Boston’s ability to still hold on for two points against Tampa without the help of its power play is a good way to put a positive spin on things. But that 5v4 unit is going to have to get back on track sooner rather than later — with a bout against the Panthers and their 21st-ranked penalty kill on Thursday serving as a prime chance to right the ship. 

"We just didn't execute well enough on it,” Cassidy said of the power play. “Some of our entries, people were a little out of position and they were aggressive enough tonight that we need to be a little cleaner. We had a couple looks, but typically, we were able to generate more. I think, as a coach, it's good to see that against a good team. Not that your power play isn't sharp, but if it doesn't come through, you can still win the game."