The Boston Bruins’ decision to bring in Landon Ferraro is looking better by the day.
Since being claimed off waivers from the Detroit Red Wings late last month, Ferraro has been a pleasant surprise for his new club, tallying five points (three goals, two assists) in his first eight games in black and gold.
Why was this stat line surprising? Well, the 24-year-old forward failed to record a single point in 10 games with the Red Wings this season, and he’d gotten on the score sheet just once, with a goal last season for Detroit, in 17 career NHL appearances before joining the Bruins.
“It seems like a lot of great things are happening right now since I joined this team,” Ferraro told reporters after Wednesday’s 3-1 win over the Montreal Canadiens, via BostonBruins.com. “And to do this in Montreal is pretty exciting, obviously.”
Wednesday’s game might have been the best of Ferraro’s NHL career. In addition to scoring what proved to be the game-winning goal in the third period, he also recorded five hits, blocked four shots and logged 1:22 of shorthanded ice time — a huge boost for a Bruins team that was missing core penalty-killer Joonas Kemppainen to an upper body injury.
Ferraro’s 14:35 of total ice time against the Canadiens also represented the second-highest mark of his career. Only in Detroit’s 2014-15 regular-season finale, when he logged 16:09, did he play more.
“(Ferraro) has been good, and we’ve been able to utilize him in all areas,” head coach Claude Julien told reporters, per CSNNE.com. “To me, he’s been a pretty reliable player, and he’s a guy that can skate and make some smart decisions. He’s finding ways to give us some production as well.”
That combination of versatility and production is Ferraro’s most valuable attribute, and it’s what’s made him a fixture in the lineup thus far in his brief Bruins tenure. He and Ryan Spooner — a key cog in Boston’s power play and the man who assisted on Ferraro’s game-winner in Montreal — were the only bottom-six forwards to see action in each of the team’s last eight games.
And with the level Ferraro has been playing at, there’s no reason for that to change.
Thumbnail photo via Perry Nelson/USA TODAY Sports Images
