Boston Bruins Forward Chris Kelly Making Strides Toward Redemption

Chris Kelly is going to need a few months, if not several, to substantively justify the Boston Bruins’ decision to retain his services. With that being said, his first two weeks in the 2014-15 NHL season have served to lay out the expectations.

With an assist on the goal that put Saturday’s 4-0 whitewash of Buffalo out of reach, Kelly has a three-game production streak. His four helpers over the team’s three-game, all-Atlantic Division road trip give him five points through seven ventures on the year.

Naturally, that is not a sustainable 82-game pace for a third-liner. Nevertheless, Kelly is gradually erasing his long-held liability label by forming one of Boston’s bright spots, opposite linemates Loui Eriksson and Carl Soderberg, early in 2014-15.

That troika need not change anything. The Bruins simply need more consistency from the rest of their strike force, particularly the top six, to avoid burdening their third unit over the long run.

Only a leaky defensive performance and an emotional meltdown in Montreal barred Boston from sweeping its trip. The third line percolated half of the scoring in Thursday’s fall-from-ahead, 6-4 loss to the Canadiens.

But from an offensive standpoint, the visits to Montreal and Buffalo were all but a best-case scenario. Besides every third-liner, the likes of Patrice Bergeron, David Krejci and Brad Marchand were brushing the scoresheet.

Every unit will need to keep driving those droves in order to bring the Bruins, who are now 3-4-0, back above the .500 mark. That is to say nothing of the division, let alone conference, let alone the league’s top echelon.

As it happens, the last time this club looked this shaky in the tone-setting stages of the season was the last time Kelly flexed much consistency.

Boston started its Stanley Cup title defense with a wretched 3-7-0 run through October 2011. Kelly produced in two of those three wins and logged five points overall in that 10-game span.

The Bruins restored their characteristic persona with a 23-3-1 romp between Nov. 1 and Jan. 5 of that season. Kelly amassed 11 goals and seven assists and never went pointless for more than three consecutive games in that stretch.

Steve Babineau/Getty Images

In the present day, the soon-to-be 34-year-old forward (his birthday is Nov. 11) need not shoulder expectations of a duplicate two-month tear. He does not quite need to shoot for the same final 82-game output of 20 goals and 19 helpers he achieved in 2011-12.

He could, however, stand to ensure a year’s worth of shelf life in his chemistry with Eriksson and Soderberg.

Head coach Claude Julien is indisputably banking on that. As quoted by csnne.com beat writer Joe Haggerty Saturday night, the Boston bench boss underscored the early rewards for middle-tier continuity on his depth chart:

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It’s been important, and that’s why we put them back together. When David (Krejci) was injured and we felt like we didn’t have all of the players in place, we put the guys that we thought had some good chemistry in the past back together…That was (Bergeron’s) line and (Soderberg’s) line for that matter. Because of that they helped us weather the storm a little bit, and it’s been hard to break them.

"

Can the third line stay that sturdy for six months and beyond? If so, Kelly will have no excuses not to cut back on the scoreless skids lasting five games or more that littered his 2012-13 and 2013-14 game logs.

Anything that will moderately alleviate the jutting notion that he is needlessly consuming precious cap space will help his outlook. That aforementioned career year in 2011-12 was instrumental in earning Kelly a four-year renewal that upped his annual cap hit from $2,125,000 to an even $3 million.

He still has another half of that contract left to make it look more passable, especially if the worst of his injury history is behind him. But through its first half, that contract looked nothing short of hasty and excessive.

Kelly managed 81 regular-season appearances between the 2012-13 and 2013-14 seasons. He was absent in multiple ways during the following playoffs—first in spirit, then in body.

A lower-back ailment, which rendered him ineligible for a compliance buyout, kept him out of action for the full 2014 tournament. The year prior, he sprinkled a paltry three points over 21 appearances in Boston’s run to the 2013 final.

With those developments, Boston’s best bet to address its ongoing cap constraints would have been to dangle a now-healthy Kelly during training camp. Perhaps a team seeking to reach the floor could have taken a chance with the potential reward of his veteran presence stirring a resurgence.

Instead, general manager Peter Chiarelli dealt defenseman Johnny Boychuk to the New York Islanders two weeks ago. That move effectively brought the Bruins back below the ceiling with $2,240,500 in spare space, which was how their chart read on CapGeek as of Sunday afternoon.

For the record, Boychuk takes only $366,667 more in cap space than Kelly. Boston, therefore, could have still been hovering around $2 million in open room had it sacrificed a struggling center-turned-winger instead of an indispensable, prototypical blue-line bouncer.

But Chiarelli dealt who he dealt and kept who he kept. For the logical trade candidates who have stayed, this should only ignite an inner urge to justify the decision.

To a degree, the loss of Boychuk will be a separate issue from whatever the third line can accomplish as 2014-15 rolls along. Thursday’s Montreal debacle, wherein Boston’s exploited defense denied its prolific offense any reward, could be a microcosm of the club’s worst-case scenario come spring.

There will only be so much the forwards, even those with top-notch two-way skill sets, can do to shore up the actual defensive corps.

As a checking-liner, Kelly will have no shortage of expectations on the home front. But he also needs to keep teaming with his Swedish colleagues in running a productive transition if he is to curtail second guesses over his non-trade.

Kelly apologists did not need to wait long for the slightest morsel of meat in their case. In the Oct. 8 season opener, Kelly landed three hits and raked home a tiebreaker from the doorstep with one minute, 51 seconds remaining in a 2-1 win over Philadelphia.

Odds are those same supporters quieted along with Boston’s twigs over the next three games. Over that stretch, the club aggregated two goals while Kelly’s zero points matched the team’s gains in the standings.

To his credit, however, he stopped the bleeding long before it reached 2013 proportions with his productive road trip. While the sample size is still too slim, he displayed another prototypical gleam of grit in the Bruins’ latest winning cause.

Kelly made Saturday’s fourth scoring play possible by converging with opposing defenseman Mike Weber in the far corner. While they engaged, he helped the loose puck squirt out to Eriksson’s possession behind the Buffalo cage.

Kelly then darted to the porch to absorb Eriksson’s subsequent pass and hand things over to Soderberg, who roofed a backhander at 14:48 of the middle frame.

Staying that hungry with a three-goal upper hand already intact in the latter half of regulation speaks to Kelly’s compete level. It is where it needs to be if he is to capitalize on his clean slate and replenished physical form.

If that lasts, and he continues to deliver the depth the Bruins need to remain in the NHL’s upper echelon, he could turn out to be a worthy keeper.

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