Takin' a T/O With BT: Something's Bruin With The Black and Gold in Boston

Well look who’s on top now, the Boston Bruins.

For the second consecutive season in the Northeast division, a surprise team has flown off to a hot start and placed themselves at the top of the division, overtaking the Montreal Canadiens—the favorites in the Northeast heading into this season—for first place in the division and second place in the conference.

But how have the Bruins done it? Going up against skill teams like the Canadiens, high-scoring teams like the Buffalo Sabres, and hard-working teams like the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Bruins haven’t had an easy task throughout the first two months of the season, but they’ve adapted to whatever style they’ve been faced with.

For the most part, there isn’t really an overly-impressive aspect of this team. While they do have the number-nine ranked powerplay in the league (20.3%), their penalty killing is pretty average—actually exactly middle-of-the-road—coming in at fifteenth at 81.8%.

Wait, a team that’s winning without special teams prominence?

Sidenote: Want proof? Nine of the 14 teams ahead of the Bruins in Penalty Kill percentage are currently playoff-bound while the Philadelphia Flyers are on the cusp, tied with New Jersey for eighth in the East.

Five of the eight teams ahead of the Bruins in Power Play percentage are in the playoffs as well, with both Philadelphia (again) and Toronto tied for the 8th and final spot. While the Power Play proficiency is great, it’s interesting to see the Bruins just out of first in the conference with a fifteenth ranked penalty kill.

For the Bruins, it’s been classic bangin’, crashin’, smash mouth hockey, with some old-time scoring flair. As it stands, the Bruins are one of 12 teams in the NHL to average 3 or more goals per game, putting themselves in NHL elitist company including the Detroit Red Wings, San Jose Sharks, Pittsburgh Penguins, and Washington Capitals—those four are some pretty vaunted offensive attacks based on namesakes alone,

While the Bruins have begun developing a scoring attack based around the play-making of Marc Savard (15 assists and 21 points in 18 games) and Phil Kessel’s finishing ability (8 goals in 18 games), there’s something you may not know about them.

They’ve put up the second-lowest goals-allowed per game average in the NHL, right behind the stingy Minnesota Wild. That’s right…the Boston Bruins are second in that.

Not too bad for a team who allowed .11 more goals per game than they scored eh?

As the Bruins have locked in defensively (The Bruins and the San Jose Sharks have the fewest players with minus ratings on their team in the NHL with three each) and have shored up their play in their own end, they’ve also been working on nailing the tangibles of hockey.

As it stands, the Bruins sit sixth in the NHL in faceoff percentage at 52.4%, nearly a full 3% better than they were last season. They’ve also averaged the eighth-most shots in the NHL per game at 31.2, and with a total of 561 shots, they’ve scored on 9% of them.

While they’ve allowed about the same amount of shots (31.6 per game, good for 24th in the league), they also have their secret weapon tending the twine for them: Tim Thomas.

Coming in to the season, I wasn’t convinced that a 34-year old with only 177 games of NHL experience could be anything but a tandem goalie. Fortunately enough, the Bruins had the perfect tandem goalie to form the second part of this duo in Manny Fernandez.

As the season kicked off however, Thomas and his unpredictable style began to take over, proving that some of those stat lines from the past few seasons (a 2.44 goals-against average in 2007/08 and a 30-win 2006/07) may not have been flukes for the late-bloomer.

Although Thomas started off the season a little rough, allowing 11 goals in his first four games going 1-1-2, Thomas was still making saves for a team that was getting out played, stopping 124 pucks in those first four games.

Then came the onslaught.

Thomas became the stonecutter, erecting a brick wall in front of his crease. In the next five games he went 4-1-0, allowing only six goals (including a shutout over Vancouver), and since allowing three goals against the Calgary Flames on October 30th, Thomas has yet to allow more than two in the five games following, which have included opponents such as Toronto (twice), Dallas, and the New York Rangers—all teams that feature players who know how to score.

Waking up on Tuesday morning, Thomas was the league-leader in goals-against average with a 1.78 mark (nine points better than Brian Boucher who’s relied on the strength of two shutouts) and a .944 save percentage, four points better than Florida’s Craig Anderson.

Moving forward though, the Bruins still have areas of their game where they need to improve.

While they’re an excellent team during the second and third periods (they have an .800 winning percentage when leading after two periods—8 wins and two losses in overtime), they need to improve on, not only their ability to come back, but their ability to hold a lead after the first period.

Coming out of the first period with a lead, the Bruins are 4-2-1. Only the Tampa Bay Lightning have more combined losses (Regulation, overtime, and shootout) with four, then the Bruins and the five other teams with three losses.

While the Bruins have been playing a scrappy style of hockey once they get down in the game, they’re still having trouble closing the deal. In the three games (which is the fewest games in the league to be trailing after the first) they’ve trailed after the first period, the Bruins are 1-0-2 (They’re also 0-2-1 when trailing after two periods).

Now the fact that they’ve been getting points after being down in games is great to see from a young, hungry team, but if they want to stay atop the division then they have to close the deal and get the extra point instead of just settling for one, especially with the scoring potential of the teams chasing them.

All of that will come with experience however, which for some of the younger Bruins like Milan Lucic (Who’s reminding people an aweful lot of Cam Neely and will be for a while), Blake Wheeler, David Krejci, and Dennis Wideman are getting on the fly, but while the Bruins are getting great contributions from some of their younger stars, it’s the vets that need to start stepping it up.

Patrice Bergeron and Michael Ryder were both expected to bounce-back this season (Bergeron from injury and Ryder from an off-year). So far however, Bergeron has run into a bit of a wall after a solid start (two points in his last six games), while Ryder’s goal-scoring troubles seem to have carried over to this season.

The back-end is going through a bit of a rough patch as well, as big Zdeno Chara is one pace for one of his worst statistical seasons in recent memory, and Andrew Ference will be lost for the foreseeable future to a broken leg.

As the Bruins look to keep their streak running from November to December, they’ll have to keep the youth coming and Tim Thomas sprawling, because that’s what’s gotten them to this point so far.

Although they may look to be susceptible to a slight drop off  as the season goes on, the pieces are in place with Milan Lucic and Blake Wheeler for the Bruins to be a player in the Northeast.

Ladies and gentlemen, the big bad bears are back!

Bryan Thiel is a Senior Writer and NHL Community Leader for Bleacher Report. You can get in contact with Bryan through his profile, and you can also check out all of his previous work in his archives.