Seth Griffith Fitting in on the First Line with the Boston Bruins

His two goals and three points in the Boston Bruins’ 4-3 Tuesday night loss to Minnesota are not Seth Griffith’s most startling stats. His five points over four consecutive NHL outings cannot claim that distinction either.

Here is the real number worth gaping over: 10.

That is how many calendar days encompassed a stretch that began with Griffith’s most recent minor league game and Tuesday’s career performance in the NHL.

Two Sundays ago, on Oct. 19, the second-year professional put in his third AHL appearance of the 2014-15 season. He pitched in a goal for Providence then returned to the parent club the next day for his second NHL stint.

Working with first-line fixtures David Krejci and Milan Lucic, he has squandered negligible seconds in the act of stretching that stint. In his first game back from the one-day reassignment, and fourth venture with Boston overall, he converted a Lucic setup for his first NHL goal and point against San Jose.

Two nights later, Griffith returned the favor, collaborating with Krejci to set up Lucic’s first strike of the season.

Now he has swollen that sample size through a three-point sugar rush in Tuesday night’s action. Moreover, he did it primarily by employing the grit and instinct of a five-year veteran.

With less than two minutes remaining in the opening frame, Griffith joined his linemates in an impromptu counterattack after Minnesota relinquished the puck in neutral ice. As Krejci carried the biscuit down the far alley, Griffith crept to the slot, keeping himself open until the playmaking pivot found a workable seam.

Once on the porch, all he needed to do was one-time Krejci’s low-flying, diagonal feed into an open slab. The simplicity of that tip-in beguiled the bold bloodhound’s nose for the net that put him in the position for it to begin with.

Griffith’s encore play, which snapped the 1-1 knot he had drawn one Zamboni shift earlier, warrants a similar assessment. In the sixth minute of the second period, Gregory Campbell piloted a rush onto Minnesota property, where the Bruins were at a disadvantage in terms of bodies but not space.

While two of three Wild backcheckers focused on Campbell, Griffith focused on beating Nino Niederreiter to the doorstep. When he did, he reran his late first-period act by burying a one-time tap to the right of goaltender Niklas Backstrom.

Although the Bruins spilled the resultant 2-1 (later 3-1) lead, the unripe right wing’s compete level, more than its results, stood out as a surprise specimen of stability. Few, if any, would have guessed that an outright NHL novice barely out of his teen years would plug the spot that Jarome Iginla left over the summer.

Per Joe Haggerty of csnne.com, head coach Claude Julien all but underscored Griffith as the right long-term fit for that key void in the depth chart. If nothing else, the youngster’s fashion of production Tuesday night proved he is willing and able to execute as expected on the Krejci-Lucic unit.

In Julien’s words, as quoted by Haggerty following Tuesday’s loss:

"

That line last year scored a lot of goals from guys driving the net and he did a great job of driving the net every time. He got rewarded for it. He also made a nice play there on Looch’s (Milan Lucic) goal. If there’s somebody that should be walking out of here with his head up high, it’s him.

"

Griffith’s third point against Minnesota was a multifold milestone. Besides swelling his single-night high in the production column, it constituted his first share of credit in an NHL power-play conversion.

Through a cross-ice dish to point patroller Torey Krug, whose bid Lucic directed home, Griffith formed the first edge of an archetypal triangle.

With that, he ended an overall nine-day, four-game gap between power-play points. He had previously buried a feed from Matt Lindblad to secure a 3-1 P-Bruins win over Portland, which was fielding five skaters by virtue of an empty net while shorthanded.

Griffith’s odds of sticking on Boston’s top unit for the balance of 2014-15 are anything but an empty-netter. But all things considered, they are better than his chances of taking part in another AHL game.

Claus Andersen/Getty Images

It is a rare welcome sign for a team that is short on decent options to ensure a stable structure on its strike force. Among logical veteran candidates, Simon Gagne is looking like fourth-line material while Loui Eriksson has maintained his third-line chemistry with Swedish countryman Carl Soderberg.

Barring a trade, that leaves young talent from the farm to try their luck. Through the better part of seven overall appearances, Griffith is actively stating he can suffice.

Whether he turns in satisfying efforts for enough of the season will owe in part to Krejci and Lucic’s joint leadership. Both are homegrown Bruins who have been NHL regulars since 2007-08, Julien’s first season behind the bench.

The rest of the saga will depend on Griffith himself. The unlikely nature of his last week and a half means it can impose mental fetters if he lets it sink in for too long.

Paradoxically enough, the team’s collective struggles could be the key to offsetting even a subconscious form of laxity. At 5-6-0, the Bruins again need back-to-back wins to climb back above .500 for the first time since their opening-night triumph over Philadelphia.

The next four games will be crammed into an eight-day stretch, with only one pair of consecutive off days. In turn, Griffith and company will have little time to let short-term memories linger.

Another 60-plus games still need to elapse before the Bruins dole out their prestigious Seventh Player Award. Given his expectations a mere 10—let alone 20—days ago, the early front-runner could not radiate much brighter.

That notwithstanding, Griffith’s next challenge is to meet his revised expectations as they rise on the fly. They are doing that, in no small part, through his own doing as he conveys a healthy comfort taking top-troika NHL shifts.

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