Boston Bruins' Awards for the 1st Half of the 2014-15 Season

With their shoddy results through the first 41 games of 2014-15, the Boston Bruins need valiance points to round out any cases for hardware.

That said, although their postseason viability has been anything but stable, they have never strayed from lassoing distance of a decent seed. The fact that they are still in realistic contention is primarily a product of players defying their inexperience or recent bouts with injuries.

Elsewhere, the glue guys who have been available for action virtually every night have generally propped things up with their performances. They have done this in the face of heightened demand, thus setting the right example for a revolving door of reinforcements from Providence.

With the log they have penned from early October to this past week, the Bruins have four categories worthy of a competition for a midseason team award. The following slides detail each category and its leading candidate for recognition. 

Team MVP: Patrice Bergeron

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Due to injury, the Bruins played without one of their most tenured leaders and most leaned-on defensive skaters in Zdeno Chara for 19 games. For the same reason, they went without one of their top two centers in David Krejci for 20 ventures.

From late October to early December, those two absences overlapped for 14 nonconsecutive games.

But naturally, longtime alternate captain and two-way connoisseur Patrice Bergeron answered the call to help compensate for those missing pieces.

The quintessence of the first line of defense has helped the Bruins stay within the top 10 on the NHL’s team goals-against average leaderboard. Going into Monday’s action, they were tied for ninth with 2.49 setbacks per game.

At the other end, besides being the club’s top playmaker with 21 assists, Bergeron has led his line to a cornucopia of clutch performances. He and winger Brad Marchand have each tallied three game-winning goals on the year, the most recent being an overtime clincher at Pittsburgh in Game No. 41.

Top Rookie: Niklas Svedberg

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For this season, anyway, the pool is populous enough to dole out a team award in this category. The Bruins have dressed 10 players who each entered the 2014-15 campaign with no more than six games of prior NHL experience.

Of those who have stuck with the big club, backup goaltender Niklas Svedberg has demonstrated the most consistency. With the exception of a five-goal shellacking in Montreal on Nov. 13, he has been fairly efficient in each of his 10 starts.

Yes, there is some merit to the notion that Boston’s defensive system is conducive to sound stats for any netminder. But Svedberg still needs to play his part and bolster that system, often after lengthy gaps between game appearances and occasionally against top-notch competition.

One prime example: Dec. 2, when he blinked only once on 34 shots in a loss to Los Angeles and Jonathan Quick. The Kings, naturally, finalized their 2-0 win on an empty-netter.

Svedberg did not see extramural action again for another 15 nights. But when he got the nod again, he turned in 35 saves to help repress the host Minnesota Wild, 3-2, in overtime. That save total matched a season high from a tough 3-2 loss to the New York Islanders on Oct. 23, the night Chara left with his injury.

As the team’s official roster read on Monday, Svedberg’s only company among Boston rookies consists of Craig Cunningham and David Pastrnak. If the latter remains in The Show, he will stand the best chance of usurping this title in the second half.

Top Defenseman: Dennis Seidenberg

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Dennis Seidenberg was still regaining his rhythm after a nine-month hiatus from game action when the urgency increased without warning. When Chara, and later Adam McQuaid, went down with injuries, he was suddenly the team’s lone defenseman with two full seasons of NHL experience.

His handling of that scenario brought mixed results, factoring into the team’s overall struggles. But a combination of demand and delivery has set Seidenberg apart from the rest of Boston’s blueliners to date.

With Chara’s seven-week absence, Seidenberg and Dougie Hamilton are the team’s neck-and-neck runaway leaders in terms of cumulative ice time. Seidenberg has played 953 minutes and 40 seconds, Hamilton 947:05.

Each have been on the ice for 45 opposing goals, meaning their overall efficiency rate is relatively the same. But they are more noticeably apart when it comes to even strength.

With a level distribution of players, Seidenberg has shared the responsibility for 34 setbacks in 832:10. Hamilton has been in action for 35 in a span of 784:12. When one applies that data to the goals-against average formula, it chalks up to a 2.45 even-strength GAA for Seidenberg, 2.68 for Hamilton.

Besides seeing the most time at five-on-five (nightly average of 19:21), Seidenberg trails only Chara and Kevan Miller with 2:36 of shorthanded action per night. By comparison, Hamilton and Torey Krug see sparse time on the penalty kill.

Again, nothing has really sparkled in Seidenberg’s results this season, but this award had to go to somebody.

Seventh Player: Chris Kelly

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Considering the criteria, the decision for this award came by default more than any other. The Seventh Player Award is one of the Bruins’ official prizes, which they bestow upon the player who eclipses his expectations the most.

Given their subpar start en route to a 20-15-6 record at the 41-game mark, they have not yielded many bona fide candidates on that front. But Chris Kelly qualifies by virtue of his preseason uncertainty and midseason stability.

Kelly, who turned 34 this past November, underwent offseason surgery after missing 25 regular-season games and all of the 2014 playoffs. Because of his injuries, he was ineligible for a compliance buyout, though he was subject to speculation on that front for each of the last two offseasons.

Come what may, the Bruins stuck with him. But with his snowballing history of erratic health and performances, the aging forward’s best bet appeared to be limited fourth-line duty or a spare 13th forward role.

Instead, for the better part of the first half, he assimilated with Carl Soderberg and Loui Eriksson on the third unit. While he has at times gone arid, enduring separate scoreless skids of seven and 11 games, the arrangement has been better than his presumptive demotion.

Furthermore, Kelly has already had enough productive stretches to best his two previous seasons. In 39 out of a possible 41 appearances, he finished the first half of 2014-15 with 17 points.

Last year, Kelly posted 18 points in 57 ventures. In 2012-13, he amassed a mere nine points in 34 games.

With 19 points in 41 games as of Monday, he should easily exceed his combined output from the two prior regular seasons.

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