The Boston Bruins have exceeded expectations early into the 2022-23 NHL season, without star players Charlie McAvoy and Brad Marchand, and have started the season an impressive 6-1-0.
That success is enormous thanks to the offense Bruins fans have seen from the top-six forwards, led by the likes of David Pastrnak and Taylor Hall. However, a depleted defense is potentially what has stood out the most, especially a duo that's regularly the third pairing, playing in the top two.
That pairing is Derek Forbort and Connor Clifton, who, so far, is one of the best pairings in the entire league that has played at least 50 minutes together.
The Forbort-Clifton pairing ranks 12th in the NHL in Expected Goals Percentage (xGoals%), which is a stat where we use shot quality to determine which team is expected to score more goals when a certain player is one the ice by looking at the difference between expected goals for (xGF) and expected goals against (xGA).
