The Boston Bruins weren’t supposed to be this good. They weren’t supposed to dominate the league as they have. No one expected them to be the top contender for the Stanley Cup, especially with critical players like Brad Marchand and Charlie McAvoy starting the season on the shelf rehabbing from offseason surgeries.
But with just five weeks left in the regular season, the Black and Gold clinched a spot in the postseason. Their record of 50-10-5 is of historic proportions. They are the fastest team to reach 50 wins in NHL history, doing so in their 64th game.
Despite all the Bruins’ success, they now face a little bit of adversity amid their longest road trip this season.
The Bruins will face the Chicago Blackhawks, Winnipeg Jets, Minnesota Wild and Buffalo Sabres before returning home to Boston.
Here are three ways the Bruins can successfully finish the road trip and beyond.
Start On Time
With just 17 games remaining this season, the Bruins need to find a way to get their game legs under them and play a full 60 minutes.
Boston trailed early in both games of its home-and-home series with the Detroit Red Wings this past weekend. The Bruins overcame the early deficit Saturday and pulled out a 3-2 win, but unfortunately for Boston, it couldn’t complete the comeback on Sunday.
Playing from behind can tire a team out, especially given the already long, strenuous season, so playing the style of hockey that won Boston 50 games would certainly put the Bruins in position to string together a new win streak.
Get Healthy
Boston is without forwards Nick Foligno and Taylor Hall, and defenseman Hampus Lindholm was scratched from Sunday’s game due to a swollen foot he suffered blocking a shot in Saturday’s win.
The Bruins recalled forward Jakub Lauko on Monday, and head coach Jim Montgomery told reporters last week that he planned to use defenseman Jakub Zboril in the lineup during the road trip.
Having Lauko and Zboril in the lineup can help rest players that are a tad banged up or who could just use a night off. With the playoff spot clinched, there is no reason why Montgomery can’t tweak the lines and see what comes out of it.
Special-Teams Play
The Bruins have the league’s best penalty kill at 85.6%, but what was once a dominant power play has dropped down to 10th in the league at 22.7%, scoring only six goals in their last 57 opportunities.
The Bruins haven’t looked as crisp in their passing on the man advantage, which has allowed opposing teams to collapse on two of Boston’s biggest threats, David Pastrnak and Patrice Bergeron.
Montgomery recently tried Dmitry Orlov on the top power-play unit, but the team has still struggled to get pucks through to the net.
The power play is not the be-all and end-all to winning a Stanley Cup. The 2011 Bruins taught us that. But figuring it out over the next four games can make this road trip a successful one.
The Bruins will face off against the Chicago Blackhawks on Tuesday night at United Center. Puck drops at 8:30 p.m. ET
