Bruins could see some big changes happen to their power play

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Joshua Deeds
October 20, 2024 (8:57)

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The Boston Bruins' power play has played dismally, as they currently have a ranking of 20th in the NHL via Statmuse.

The team's current percentage right now is 18.2% even the Chicago Blackhawks have a better power play, with a 31.3% percentage under Luke Richardson.

Jim Montgomery is letting the Bruins slide in key spots, which if he could find a way to patch up the flaws would increase confidence in the B's overall game.

As the Bruins have played 5 games, and have a record of 3-2-0 they could improve this record significantly with improved special teams.

The power play is another area that needs to be improved. The B's ranked 29th out of 32 teams with a 16.1 power-play percentage over the last 33 games of the regular season. The Bruins power play was abysmal in Round 2 versus the Panthers with only one goal in 16 opportunities.

While it sounds like there's been a slight improvement over the last season, it's still not good enough, despite how much Cam Neely claims otherwise.

"Well, I think if we get everybody in camp and everybody healthy, we're a cup contender. There's no question. I strongly believe that," Bruins president Cam Neely said at a press conference on Sept. 30. "I think our players believe that. I know our coaching staff believes that.

"... I think we're going to defend extremely well. Are we going to get the offense we'd like? That remains to be seen. We know who can produce. We just will still need some guys to step up offensively. Our power play, we talked about that. It slipped a little bit in the last half of last year. I think that can come back now that maybe we have a little bit more of a bumper position solidified with Elias (Lindholm). I think he likes to play there, so we'll see how that goes.

"But I feel like we're a strong contender if we've got our full lineup.»

Adding Mason Lohrei as the power-play quarterback has been a significant help, along with their change of how to view the play, using the ice as a whole and making tape-to-tape passes instead of dropping the puck back to the defenseman.

Can the Bruins continue to improve? Is 2% really a significant improvement? I don't think so, as 2 goals on the man advantage for the Bruins 5 games into the regular season should be considered subpar.

While we understand the Bruins have had to acclimate new players to the Bruins system, the foundation of the system was flawed last year too.

It's rotten and should be rebuilt from the bottom up.