Ryan: A familiar strength for the Bruins is failing them against top dogs in Eastern Conference

When it comes to documenting the conquests of a potent Bruins power play that has diced up and decimated even the sturdiest PK units for the past half-decade, it’s often the bombastic coup de grâces that stuff most of the highlight reel.

The one-time howitzers from David Pastrnak at his usual spot in the left circle. A slick seam feed from Brad Marchand from the half-wall. In years past, it was Torey Krug uncorking clappers from the offensive blue line.

But for all the flash and finish featured on Boston’s man advantage, the manner in which the B’s generate most of those Grade-A looks usually get left on the cutting-room floor. 

Sure, with weapons like Pastrnak and Marchand at the ready, the B’s boast plenty of quick-strike potential on the power play. But when Bruce Cassidy’s 5v4 unit is really thriving, it’s sapping away a PK’s resolve by way of a war of attrition.

Boston’s high-end talent and amorphous O-zone strategy on the man advantage make it tough to contain throughout a two-minute stretch. But the daunting task of keeping the B's off the score sheet becomes downright fruitless when they’re winning puck battles and keeping the opposition on the ropes.  

“That kind of starts there,” Marchand said Thursday of Boston’s preference on the PP. “We've always been a power play where we thrive when we win battles, get pucks back, get to the net and win another battle and then the PK gets tired and we capitalize.”

Puck retrievals and cycling the biscuit around the O-zone may not be as riveting as the power-play product put forth in, say, Edmonton — but given the steady clip at which the Bruins have buried their chances on special teams over the last few years, they don’t have many qualms about it.

The issue these days, however, isn’t the lack of panache when Boston’s big guns are operating in a 5v4 spot. 

Rather, it’s the lack of  … pretty much everything.

For all of the usual warts that have festered on Boston’s roster over the last few years — be it secondary scoring, an undersized blue-line corps, etc. — Cassidy and Co. have at least found solace in a few constants on this B’s lineup.

Even during those frustrating, dark days in which David Krejci was saddled with a carousel of wingers to his left and right, the D corps was in the midst of a youth movement and the third line was previously anchored by the likes Jakob Forsbacka-Karlsson (*shudders*), the Bruins still managed to pile on points at a regular rate and keep themselves near the top of the Atlantic-Division standings.

A big reason for that sustained success (beyond the obvious production from the Marchand-Bergeron-Pastrnak line) was the guaranteed scoring from the top power-play unit — a luxury that was expected to carry over into this season with a former Hart Trophy winner in Taylor Hall added to the mix as a netfront weapon.  

But like most segments of this B’s roster through the first six games of the 2021-22 season, the B’s man advantage has been out of sync in the early going — an unexpected setback that, unsurprisingly, has left Boston’s O-zone attack rudderless and robbed the club of its trusty trump card.

Thursday’s 3-0 loss to the Hurricanes represented the latest low point for the B’s top unit — posting an 0-for-5 showing on the power play, including a pair of scuttled chances during 5-on-3 opportunities.  

Commendation should be presented to an aggressive Carolina PK group that thrives off of pressuring puck carriers and forcing panic-induced miscues. But regardless of the personnel matched up against them, the Bruins can’t expect to win most games — especially against a team like the Hurricanes — with just one shot on net over five trips to the power play. 

(Give credit to the Hurricanes' aggressive "power kill" here for giving the Bruins next to no time to gather themselves on the man advantage. Not the kind of unit you want to go against when your power play is already slumping.)

"I just think that we might be forcing it a little bit where typically we get pucks back and maybe we're trying to rush to make a play instead of settling it down and kind of getting our spots and getting set up. Then we get frustrated and it kind of snowballs from there,” Marchand said. “So I think we just have to kind of calm down out there and win battles …  We got to get back to doing that and realize what kind of power-play unit we are and hopefully it'll start to connect.”

Beyond the 0-for-5 performance on Thursday, the overall baseline numbers don’t inspire much in terms of confidence. With just two goals in 16 chances, the Bruins’ power play currently sits at 26th overall in the league with a 12.5% success rate— a far cry from its usual top-5 standing.

If we’re looking at some other underlying metrics, it doesn’t get much better. 

Among the 32 NHL clubs, the Bruins’ power play ranks…

• 20th overall in expected goals per 60 minutes (6.25)
• 24th overall in high-danger chances per 60 minutes (16.89)
• 29th overall in shots per 60 minutes (41.02)

And even though some other metrics could offer some signs that the B’s power play is primed to break out, even an optimist like Cassidy can’t really ignore the bottom line here.

 "We're looking at the numbers before today, and the numbers dictate we should be a little bit better,” Cassidy said of Boston’s power-play finishing. “But analytics are what they are. Sometimes they don't tell the whole truth. So I don't read too much into them in five games. 

“Puck recovery, where are the shots coming from, execution are all things we look at. Entries, face-offs — and I think we've been okay. We just haven't got the end result. And tonight, we needed the end result. It didn't matter, analytics, entries, whatever. They press hard. They're a good penalty-killing team. But we had to finish on the 5-on-3.”

Boston’s failure to erase its deficit despite being granted two 5-on-3 sequences (including one that lasted for over a minute), will likely make for an uncomfortable video session for the club over the next few days. 

A few recurring flaws with this current PP unit sprouted up once again during both sequences. 

Even though Charlie McAvoy impressed during the 2021 playoffs in a QB role on the man advantage, his handling of the puck along the blue line hasn’t yielded the necessary results — with frustrating fumblings with the biscuit and a lack of quick feeds back onto the blade of either Marchand/Pastrnak giving PK units ample time to snuff out chances before they can even manifest.

(Just not good enough here from McAvoy up top — especially on a brief 5-on-3 sequence.)

It’d be one thing if Boston wasn’t generating results despite extended stretches in the O-zone, but most of the last few games have seen the B’s fail to even cross the offensive blue line with some semblance of consistency.

Chalk it up to miscommunication, individualistic play or a bevy of other shortcomings. Whatever the case may be, the Bruins have been completely out-of-whack in a usual area of strength, and it’s creating a devastating snowball effect across the rest of the roster.

(Another 5-on-3 sequence spoiled after the puck carrier in Pastrnak — having to regroup with both McAvoy and Bergeron knocked over the blue line — decides to take on two Hurricanes skaters at once on the entry. It doesn't go well). 

As such, even when a Grade-A opportunity fell in Boston’s lap after Hall was granted an empty net, it still resulted in the puck skittering wide.

"We're a little bit tight with our sticks, gripping the sticks a little bit tight,” Hall said. “I think if everyone, myself included, is feeling uber-confident — that's just an easy play and easy backdoor tap-in. Right now, those aren't being given to us. So we have to work for it. And we have to just put our heads down and keep grinding and figure out a way to produce without cheating the game."

Of course, given both the talent sprinkled across that five-man unit and the adjustments that were already underway in the final minutes of Thursday’s game (Matt Grzelcyk and Jake DeBrusk skated with PP1), it’s far from a bold proclamation to state that this Bruins power play will start lighting the lamp at a pretty lethal rate once again.

At least, that’s the hope for Cassidy’s club.

Because if this Bruins team wants to weather this early storm of bouts with presumed Eastern-Conference powerhouses, its power play can’t be pedestrian. In fact, the margin of error is so slim that it really can’t be good, either. 

It needs to be elite. 

And right now, it’s far from it.