Tuesday, December 22, 2009

B's Salvage .500 Road Trip

Technically, the Bruins come home .500 on this latest road trip, having gone 1-1-1. The recent trip is easy to see-saw on. On one hand, you had a decent showing against the best team in the Western Conference on the road and lost on a night where the defense was hampered by injury playing back-back games. Then to rebound, they corrected their mistakes (better neutral zone play, capitalized on scoring chances) and beat a divisional foe that was ahead of them in the standings 2-0. Not bad.

The flip side is that you went 0-2-2 before the Ottawa win last night and continue to show a lack of offense against weaker foes (2 goals combined against TOR/OTT makes NO sense at all).

Bergeron and Krejci are practically carrying the team at this point and that's NOT a good sign when you look at their half decent numbers:

Bergeron 9-18-27 +5; Krejci 7-12-19 -1.

Those aren't blowing anyone's hair back...and they are first and third respectively in team scoring. So we need what we've needed since day one this year: More production from the top 6 forwards. The Bruins have scored just 90 goals this year (only the Hurricanes have fewer) and last night, Marco Sturm netted his 10th of the year to become the first Bruin with double digits in the goal column. So how are we six games over .500? We've allowed the 5th fewest goals, as well. Despite Thomas' struggles, we're a +3 in goal differential.

I'm not breaking any new ground here, i recognize, but it goes to the heart of the matter to note that this Boston team is capable of bigger things. Are they a cup contender as comprised right now? No. But can they compete for the division and remain a top 6 team through to the deadline in February? Absolutely, so long as the offense comes around.

Up next: 3 straight against the Southeast (Atlanta, tomorrow at 7pm is up first).

No comments:

Post a Comment