How are the Boston Bruins still dominant?

For the second season in a row, everyone was already calling for the downfall of the Boston Bruins. When they had their dominant season in 2022-23, it at least seemed plausible from the get-go. After all, Patrice Bergeron was somehow getting better with age, David Krejci was back, David Pastrnak was blossoming into a top 10 player, and Linus Ullmark was a goalie with a great track record who was playing out of his mind.

But I don’t think anyone conceivably saw this 2023-24 squad doing the same to start their season. Bergeron and Krejci were gone and left a hefty cap punishment with their performance bonuses, Boston had to give up a lot of depth just to get cap compliant, and Ullmark seemed like a strong regression candidate. This year was supposed to be the year they fell off a bit, and yet they haven’t been fazed.

This isn’t a team riding the percentages either. Whether you want to hear it or not, this team is legit. Maybe they slow down a bit from a 10-1-1 start, but they’ve proven to any doubters that they can still put up a fight. So what has allowed the Bruins to transition this group so seamlessly? Let’s take a look at some of the reasons.

David Pastrnak is still David Pastrnak

This is weird to say considering he was a finalist for the Hart Trophy last season, but I think a lot of people still slightly sleep on just how good Pastrnak is. Obviously we know how great he is, but I think people didn’t fully recognize that this offseason when they saw that Patrice Bergeron was retiring and assumed that the franchise lacked a possession driver, especially defensively.

Bergeron was looked at as the guy in Boston in their forward group, and while Pastrnak had established himself as his own impactful entity away from Bergeron in the later years of his career when the two crossed paths, people still expected their offense to take a step back without Bergeron.

Well, if you had any doubts about Pastrnak as a premier player in this league, he’s probably shut you up so far this season. He currently has nine goals, eight assists, and 17 points in 12 games this season, which is tied for 10th in the league and is six more than the next highest player on the team (which is Brad Marchand by the way, he’s no slouch either). Not only that, but Pastrnak’s 4.5 goals above replacement this season is tied for 20th in the league despite the early season chaos and sample sizes, and that’s not just offense either, as his defensive GAR is currently 0.8.

That’s allowed the Bruins to basically slap a band-aid over their No. 1 center problem, as they can just play Pavel Zacha with Pastrnak and Marchand like they have so far this season and have Zacha fill those minutes down the middle just fine. Sure, it’d be nice to have another center of the caliber of Bergeron, but the Bruins weren’t given enough notice or the budget to make that happen in the offseason, so this allows them to have a solid top line and only need to worry about a No. 2 center, which also happened to fall into their laps.

Matthew Poitras is having the rookie season that the Bruins needed

It cannot be understated how important Matthew Poitras has been to this Bruins team. Many assumed in the offseason that Charlie Coyle was going to be the second-line center for Boston this season with so few options for them, but Poitras has managed to come out of nowhere and given the Bruins exactly what they needed.

Four goals, three assists and seven points in 12 games is already great production for a rookie, but what’s more impressive is the fact that he’s doing it as a rookie center and facing some of the toughest minutes on the team, and doing so without much of an issue. He’s third on the Bruins with a 2.6 GAR, tied for fourth among the forwards with a 0.6 defensive GAR, and his 54.92% 5v5 expected goal share is fifth among forwards on the team.

Poitras’ play so far this season has given the Bruins a lot more flexibility with their forward depth. If they want to load up and have Marchand and Pastrnak together, they can trust Poitras to run the second line without a superstar winger. If that duo is split up, they can carry their own lines in the top six, and let Poitras operate in a third-line role.

He probably won’t ever reach a Bergeron level of play as a No. 1 center, but he’s an excellent option as a No. 2 center, and with Pastrnak and Marchand able to make anyone a solid No. 1 center, suddenly their top-two center issue is basically a non-issue. That said, looking for a more suitable No. 1 center should still be the top priority for this Bruins team if they want to go far this season.

Defense and goaltending are still spectacular

If Pastrnak is to the 2020s what Bergeron was to the 2010s for the Bruins, than Charlie McAvoy is to the 2020s what Zdeno Chara was to the 2010s. Everyone knew McAvoy would be a standout defenseman when he was drafted, and yet he still might be one of the most underrated defensemen in the league, only in that he’s probably in the same conversation as Adam Fox, Quinn Hughes, Miro Heiskanen and others in that second tier of defensemen behind Cale Makar. Even in their incredible regular season last year, Hampus Lindholm (rightfully) got more of the credit on that back end than McAvoy. And yet McAvoy’s consistently one of the top defensemen in the league, including early on this season as he’s tied for 16th among defensemen in GAR this season.

It isn’t just McAvoy though, the entire Bruins blueline is still the same dominant group that it was last season, because outside of Dmitry Orlov, Mike Reilly, and Connor Clifton leaving, and Kevin Shattenkirk joining the fold, it actually is the same group. Considering that Orlov and Reilly played a combined 33 games last season, you’re basically swapping Clifton for Shattenkirk. Lindholm, Shattenkirk, Brandon Carlo, Derek Forbort, and Matt Grzelcyk have all been excellent behind McAvoy, allowing the team to be ninth in 5v5 expected goals against with 2.45.

And they haven’t had much to worry about when they do make mistakes, because the goaltending has picked up right where it left off last season. Linus Ullmark was expected to take a step back from his Vezina winning season, but he’s still performed quite well with a .926 save percentage that ranks eighth among goalies with five games and a 1.72 goals saved above expected that ranks 22nd amongst that same group.

More surprising has been the play of Jeremy Swayman, who’s basically become the Ullmark of the team. His .952 SV% ranks first in the league among goalies with five games played, and his 5.35 5v5 GSAx is fourth among goalies with five starts behind just Thatcher Demko, John Gibson and Samuel Montembeault. It shouldn’t be a shock to anyone that follows his career, as Swayman was also really good last season and has a .922 SV% in his career.

The cheap depth is filling in the gaps

While Bergeron and Krejci were the headliners in terms of the forwards leaving, the Bruins lost a lot more from that 2022-23 team up front than just those two. Between Bergeron, Krejci, Taylor Hall, Nick Foligno, Tyler Bertuzzi, Garnet Hathaway and Tomas Nosek, the Bruins basically lost two middle-six lines, and while they had a deep enough team that season to still be fine in the wake of that, they still needed a lot of work to be done to be ultra competitive, but they had no cap space to do it.

I already talked about how Poitras is helping out the Bruins depth for super cheap, but they are getting that kind of value from more than just him. In terms of rookies alone, they’ve also been getting some production from John Beecher and Mason Lohrei, and even the pointless Jakob Lauko and Oskar Steen have provided some value when they’ve been in the lineup.

Along with those players, the Bruins also made a few low-budget signings in free agency, getting James van Riemsdyk, Kevin Shattenkirk and Milan Lucic at just over $3 million combined. None of those players is anything like what he was in his prime, but all three have been adding value in their minutes.

van Riemsdyk has eight points in 12 games, Shattenkirk has been manning the top power play while McAvoy has been suspended, and both players have a 1.5 GAR this season so far. Lucic hasn’t gotten into as much action due to injury, but even he is a positive GAR player at 0.2, the first time he’s been positive for a few seasons. None of them is jumping off the page as an impact player, but they’re at least keeping afloat in their minutes, which then paves the way for Pastrnak, Marchand and McAvoy to crush their minutes and secure wins more often than not.