Boston Bruins: Tyler Seguin Could Fill Big Skates On Offense, Power Play

When Tyler Seguin broke the ice at 6:23 of Saturday night’s first period against the Toronto Maple Leafs, it was the first time the Boston Bruins’ sophomore had scored a power-play goal in over a year.

No joke. Seguin’s only other man-up conversion in the NHL up to that point occurred on Oct. 30 of last season came against Ottawa.

For the rest of the 2010-11 ride, playoffs included, Seguin had a hand in four other Boston power-play conversions. In his regular-season debut at TD Garden, he helped to set up Michael Ryder.

Three weeks afterward, he set up Mark Recchi to break the ice during a 5-on-4 segment against the Pittsburgh Penguins.

In his first visit to rival Montreal a month later, he assisted on Marc Savard’s extra-man tally. And five months after that, he set up another strike by Ryder in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference championship series.

Notice any common threads between the three gold-striking recipients of Seguin’s power-play passes that year? Anything besides the fact that they were all heavily leaned-upon in special-teams situations?

Recchi, who had 18 goals and 20 assists on the power play in 180 regular-season games as a Bruin, is happily retired. Ryder, who turned in a 25-16-41 power-play transcript over three years in Boston, has transferred to Dallas.

And Savard, the prolific playmaker who produced 29 power-play strikes and set up 98 others in four-plus seasons with the Bruins, has not played since February and is as good as retired in the saddest possible way.

With those seasoned strikers no longer available for collaboration, it is on the second overall NHL draft choice from 2010 to start replenishing what was already a plebeian power play to begin with. While it is not quite reasonable to ask Seguin to offer up the value of three producers for the price of one, he can at least be counted on to lead the rebuild.

One of Seguin’s other power-play points this season was a promising start. Back on opening night versus Philadelphia, his long-range pass through neutral ice found fellow sophomore Brad Marchand, who beat Ilya Bryzgalov to break the ice for the season and make Boston 1-for-1 on the year with the man-advantage.

Since then, the Bruins have converted six other opportunities and Seguin has had a hand in two of them. During Toronto’s visit to the TD Garden on Oct. 20, he garnered a secondary assist on Zdeno Chara’s goal that gave Boston two power-play conversions on the night and usurped a 2-1 lead en route to a 6-2 runaway victory.

On Saturday, Seguin once again burned the team that in an alternate universe would have him donning their colors. In doing so, he tied himself with Chara for the team lead with a goal and two assists on the power play.

Oh, and he tuned the mesh a couple of times during even-strength action en route to his first NHL hat trick and a 7-0 Boston triumph. That elevated his overall scoring log to 7-7-14 through only 12 games.

While no presumptions are valid with another 70 games yet to come, it is worth noting that the Bruins have not had a point-per-game player since Savard amassed 88 in 82 games-played in 2008-09. The year prior, Savard charged up 78 points in 74 total appearances. And in 2006-07, Savard dressed for every game and topped the team charts with 96 points.

Other than that, nobody has retained that radiant point-per-night median in a Bruins uniform since Peter Chiarelli’s arrival as general manager.

Then again, of those currently available for work, who would be a greater suspect to reverse that trend than the highest draft pick Chiarelli has made so far?

There was plenty of time for waiting last season, and now it’s over. Seguin should be ready to spike his stats both overall and with the man-advantage. Together with linemates Patrice Bergeron and Marchand, he is at least capable of rendering Boston buffs content that he is as close as they will get to seeing Savard-like numbers this year.

Down the road, if not sooner? Who knows? Dare we say triple-digits someday (the first such campaign for a Bruin since Joe Thornton in 2002-03)?

The fact that Bergeron attained the playmaker hat trick by assisting on all three of Seguin’s strikes Saturday ought to be all the more encouraging. He not only upped his numbers to 3-7-10 on the young season, but has now amassed his first six-game point-getting streak since the year before his protracted absence in 2007-08.

The more the rest of the Bruins wake up from their overstretched hibernation, the more chances Seguin will have to convert his teammate’s passes and watch them bury his feeds. And the more action he sees during 5-on-4 and 5-on-3 segments, the more he ought to catalyze Boston’s power-play brigade in its rise from comical ineptitude to respectability.