Archive for the ‘Analysis’ Category

One thing that’s surprised me about the way that the Boston Bruins have been matching up this post-season is that Patrice Bergeron is getting a lot more time matched up against a single top opponent.

That wasn’t the case last year. Bergeron spent very little time matched up against Alexander Ovechkin during the Bruins’ playoff series last season against the Washington Capitals. During the first couple of games of the series, he saw lots of time matched up, but drew away from the match as the series shifted to Washington. Back in Boston for Games 5 and 7, still even less time spent against the Capitals’ most dangerous forward.

My sense this season is that while Zdeno Chara handles the ‘mano-a-mano’ minutes, Claude Julien is less scrupulous with the way he hands out his offensive minutes. Generally, Bergeron will get a lot of defensive zone faceoffs (he had just a 42.4% offensive zone start rate, 4th lowest among centremen with at least 14 minutes of time on ice per game) which will naturally line him up against top offensive players, but it isn’t a necessity.

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We’re one game away from another season of the Presidents’ Trophy winner not winning the Stanley Cup, which is going to perpetuate the narrative that certain teams are good in the regular season and not in the playoffs. Because the… sixth seed does so much better than the first seed in the postseason.

Or doesn’t.

Living in Vancouver, I frequently get into arguments, both online and in person, with people who do believe that the playoffs reveal a team’s flaws. If that is true, it’s because against quality opponents a team is more likely to break or have weaknesses hammered. The Toronto Maple Leafs ate up the weak Boston Bruins’ defensive depth. The San Jose Sharks shut down the one line of the Vancouver Canucks and let the rest of the pieces fall into play. All teams have weaknesses, and all teams have strengths, and not always will one team’s strengths match up so perfectly against another’s weakness.

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The Bruins overtime winner last night was a beauty of a goal, but it left me scratching my head a bit. The play on the offensive side of the puck was obviously great, but how do you end up in situation where Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand and Jaromir Jagr have a 2-on-1/3-on-2 on Anton Stralman and Mats Zuccarello?

Well, I came up with five reasons. Well, four true reasons and one “that could have been done better.”

In the interest of not clipping 23453452 screenshots, I’m going to highlight those.

Here’s the goal: Read the rest of this entry »

By one measure, Tyler Seguin has been the most dangerous player all series for either team.

It comes as little consolation to the young star however. The Toronto Maple Leafs have converted on a much higher number of chances than the Boston Bruins, and the Leafs’ most dangerous player—Phil Kessel—has found the back of the net three times already in the series.

I’ve long thought that a playoff series, or even a playoff run, should not change your opinion of a player. If you thought that Seguin was a player coming into the series, you should probably still think that Seguin is a player, regardless of his results from the first six games.

For those catching up (and if you’re reading hockey blogs, I presume you’re past that stage) the Maple Leafs, heavy underdogs against the Bruins in the first round, have come back from a 3-1 deficit to tie the series 3-3 after 2-1 wins in Games 5 and 6. Game 7 on a quick turnaround runs tonight, and it seems as if there are lots of people prepared to bury the Bruins.

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