BOSTON — Something about December makes Reilly Smith’s offense surge.
Twelve of the Boston Bruins winger’s 30 career NHL goals have come in the final month of the calendar year, including a second-period tally in Thursday night’s 3-2 loss to the Chicago Blackhawks at TD Garden.
Boston’s offense has struggled this season, and it has failed to score more than two goals in seven of the last 10 games. This makes Smith’s increased production after a slow start to the year — two separate goal-less droughts of nine or more games through Boston’s first 29 games — even more important to the team’s ability to win games.
“We need some goals here, and when guys like (Smith) catch fire, you’ve got to ride them,” Bruins head coach Claude Julien said. “You hope that it kind of gets into other people’s blood, I guess, and they start doing the same thing. You want that fire and you want that confidence, and that’s what we need right now — a little bit more fire in our belly and some confidence.”
Smith has a three-game point streak, with three goals and two assists in that span. The entire Brad Marchand-Patrice Bergeron-Smith line has increased its scoring production over the last three games with a combined five goals and nine assists.
Even before this last stretch of positive offensive results, Smith was creating scoring chances for himself and his linemates. His hard work finally is being rewarded.
“I think he’s skating really well,” Bergeron said. “He’s creating a lot of chances for us and also for himself by moving his feet and just taking what’s there, and right now, we’re not forcing plays, we’re seeing each other, but we got to keep doing that. He’s doing a great job of that the last two games of the road trip and again tonight, so he was really good.”
Smith still needs to find more consistency, but it’s encouraging to see him finishing scoring chances with more regularity because that has been a problem for the Bruins as a whole this season.
“I think it’s nice to get a little bit of puck luck, but I think over the past probably 10, 12 games I think I’ve maybe upped my energy a little bit,” Smith said. “I think being a little bit stronger on the puck. It’s nice playing with (Bergeron) and (Marchand) because they help me out a lot, too, but it seems like we’re clicking pretty good right now. If we can help us to get a couple more victories in these next six games before Christmas it’ll be pretty beneficial.”
Thumbnail photo via Kevin Hoffman/USA TODAY Sports
