How Boston Bruins Defenseman Dougie Hamilton Can Make 2014-15 a Career Year

In a way, third-year Boston Bruins blueliner Dougie Hamilton has yet to play a complete NHL season. A lockout delayed and shortened his rookie campaign, and he missed 18 of 82 regular-season contests in 2013-14.

Although, what he has done over 125 total appearances, particularly the last 12 playoff outings, emits no shortage of promise. The 6’5”, 212-pound 21-year-old appears raring to elevate the all-around quantity and quality of his performance in 2014-15.

Hamilton took off in mid-May on a two-round postseason run that saw him hold up as the other half of Boston’s top defensive tandem with Zdeno Chara. Besides doing his part to compensate for the absences of Dennis Seidenberg and Adam McQuaid, he pitched in seven points.

Hamilton is now returning on the other side of a summer that saw him build on his body. That could be the crucial first stride toward building on his job description and elevating his two-way ceiling.

In a Friday feature, Jess Isner of the team’s website observed, “In the process of getting stronger, Hamilton seems to have added a bit of bulk to his 6-foot-5 frame…and as a result, he enters camp in prime shape to start the year off the right way.”

Strength and endurance do not bear 100 percent assurance, but they come highly recommended in the effort to ward off injury. Having missed 10 games last December with a lower-body ailment and later four with a concussion, per TSN.ca, that is one way Hamilton can flex improvement.

Naturally, that is to say nothing of the emboldened conviction he should carry back into his day job in the defensive zone. That will apply whether he is again working with Chara or collective team health nudges him to the middle tier.

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Depending on his assignments and minutes, there may be room for more noticeable improvement at the other end. For all Chara and Torey Krug have given them (40 points apiece last season), the Bruins could stand to tap into Hamilton for more production from their rearguards.

Hamilton cultivated five goals and 11 helpers for a 16-point, 42-game rookie transcript. That amounted to an average of 0.38 points per night, while his five strikes on 83 shots equaled an even six percent accuracy rating.

Those percentages each saw only a negligible uptick in his sophomore season. With 25 points in 64 ventures, he averaged 0.39 per night. With seven goals on 114 bids, he tuned the mesh 6.1 percent of the time.

But in the 2014 postseason, though it is a smaller sample size, he pitched in on the scoresheet more than once every two games. Two of his seven points were a pair of his 23 total shots hitting the net for an 8.7 percent success rate.

Can he stretch that same accuracy rate over an 82-game itinerary against a broader range of opponents? Not necessarily this year, but bumping his regular-season shooting percentage closer to, if not right into the seven range is a reasonable expectation.

So, too, is breaking double digits in the goal column for the first time in his NHL career.

Power-play minutes are another offensive stat to monitor in Hamilton’s ongoing development. As his stride and his shot parent and polish off more scoring chances, he ought to garner a slightly greater role on that front.

Hamilton already averaged 1:55 in nightly power-play time last season for third among Boston blue-line regulars. Krug was, not surprisingly, first with 2:30, while Chara was second with 2:26.

Imagine if Hamilton instills the requisite confidence for the Bruins to flip-flop his allotment in that situation with that of the 37-year-old Chara. That is, have the younger all-around talent play the extra 29 seconds or so each night rather than the other way around.

It would be one can’t-hurt step toward conserving the captain, a measure this club patently needs to take.

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If he sticks as a first-tier fixture, Hamilton can help that cause amidst all even-strength situations as well. Joe Haggerty of CSNNE.com summed up that notion by writing, “The better Hamilton plays, the lighter the burden on Chara in the defensive zone, and potentially in the neutral zone and offensive zone if the youngster has indeed worked on his skating wheels and transition game.”

Odds are Haggerty has more plays like Hamilton’s tour from his own red line to Detroit’s red light from last season’s playoffs in mind. More of that head’s-up hustle and maneuverability in any given zone-to-zone power-play setup or even-strength counterattack.

Whether he is always partnering with Chara on those plays remains to be seen and will not necessarily hinge on Hamilton himself.

For the better part of 2013-14, head coach Claude Julien implicitly sought to even out the seasoning and youth on his defensive depth chart. If Seidenberg and Johnny Boychuk are both in this year’s equation, Julien may want to distribute more balance between his two-way defenders and stay-at-home specialists.

In that event, tandems of Chara-Boychuk and Seidenberg-Hamilton, both of which have succeeded before, could constitute Boston’s top four.

There should, however, be a mild reduction in the aging minute-muncher Chara’s nightly workload. That is if the Bruins know what will serve their best long-term interest in advance of the 2015 playoffs.

That alone should equate to a few extra shifts for Hamilton, whether he is joining Boychuk or Seidenberg to spell his captain.

In addition, the Bruins should consider reserving a smattering of nights to rest Chara altogether. In turn, there should be no shortage of opportunities for Hamilton to log more action than in the past.

After averaging a total of 17:07 per night as a rookie and 19:06 last season, Hamilton should tinker on the 20-minute range in 2014-15. After putting in 42 appearances in 2012-13 and 64 as a sophomore, he should have his eye on 80, 81 or 82 games played.

It is one thing to inflate one’s annual game log and swell that to the second power with an extra nightly minute or two. It is quite another to inject substance into that aggregate time sheet.

Hamilton is entering his third NHL training camp with the right physical and mental advancements to bring the latter to fruition.

Unless otherwise indicated, all statistics for this report were found via NHL.com.