The 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs ended about where it should have for the Boston Bruins, all things considered.
I mean, speaking personally, when the year began I had circled winning a playoff round as a realistic expectation for this year’s ‘Moneyball’ squad, with the ‘high end’ of the expectations being getting to the third round of the playoffs. And the Bruins, as it turned out, decided to meet us all in the middle by way of a second-round exit against the Florida Panthers, and with Boston’s season ending in a home-ice loss (pretty sure the season ending in Boston’s building is in the CBA at this point) in Game 6.
Swayman can be The Guy™
May 8, 2024; Sunrise, Florida, USA; Boston Bruins goaltender Jeremy Swayman (1) looks on prior to the game against the Florida Panthers in game two of the second round of the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs at Amerant Bank Arena. (Sam Navarro/USA TODAY Sports)
When the talk of Jeremy Swayman and a massive, big-money extension first came about, I said I needed to see more before I was sold on that kind of deal for the 25-year-old. And, boy, did I see it this postseason.
Given the keys to the net — and put in an advantageous spot for the first time in his playoff career, you could argue — Swayman more than delivered, with a postseason-best .933 save percentage in 12 games.
Swayman was also downright lethal in the three elimination games he started, with just four goals allowed in all, and a .955 save percentage over the course of that three-game run. Swayman also allowed two goals or fewer in nine of his 12 outings during this postseason, which was the most since Tuukka Rask did it 16 times in 2019. It also happened 15 times during Rask’s 2013 run, and 16 times for Tim Thomas on his incredible 2011 run. The common theme among those runs is that the Bruins made it to the Finals all three times, whereas Swayman did it nine times despite playing just two rounds. Swayman also finished the postseason with a staggering 13.3 goals saved above expected (per Moneypuck.com), which is almost five goals higher than second-place Igor Shesterkin and his 8.8 GSAE.
“Overall, [Swayman] is a very confident kid,” Bruins winger David Pastrnak told me during Boston’s second-round series. “You know you can see that from day one he came to the locker room. And to be quite honest, that’s what you need from the goalie. He had that healthy cockiness. There’s never a doubt in him.”
“His maturation has been has been amazing and just seeing the growth he’s had his game, and I think the biggest thing with him is his confidence and his belief in himself,” echoed Charlie McAvoy. “It really does rub off on everybody. I have so much confidence playing in front of him.”
In essence, Swayman proved that he can be The Guy for the Bruins in the playoffs.
That wasn’t known before this run, and it was a big reason why people like myself pushed back on the idea of splitting up the goaltending tandem until one of these guys proved capable of carrying the load on their own. Swayman did exactly that this postseason, and it’s certainly put Swayman in line for a massive, massive contract this offseason (eight times eight, anybody?) and paved the way for what feels like a likely split between the Bruins and Linus Ullmark.
Bruins need a center (and badly)
Nov 30, 2023; Boston, Massachusetts, USA; Boston Bruins center Pavel Zacha (18) celebrates his goal with center Charlie Coyle (13) and defenseman Charlie McAvoy (73) during the third period against the San Jose Sharks at TD Garden. (Bob DeChiara/USA TODAY Sports)
Let’s make this absolutely, crystal effin’ clear: Charlie Coyle, Pavel Zacha, and Morgan Geekie gave you absolutely everything you could’ve expected out of them this season. It’s not easy replacing Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci, and it turns out that it’s even harder when you’re wrecked by cap overages and stuck in a year-long sentence in cap jail.
But as the playoffs dragged on, it became more and more apparent that the Bruins need another high-end center added to the mix if they’re going to elevate themselves beyond ‘second-round hopeful, third-round challenger’ status.
One could argue that the Bruins were lucky to escape the first-round given the center matchup of Auston Matthews and John Tavares against the Bruins’ group. And potentially getting out of a second-round showdown with Aleksander Barkov and Sam Bennett would’ve been downright miraculous. But when this series shifted into high gear, and Barkov became more and more of a factor in crunch time, it was evident that it was downright impossible.
The Bruins were simply on the wrong end of a key faceoff, offensive-zone carry, or offensive contribution from the center position too many times in their second-round showdown. You actually lost count by the late stages of it, really.
Now, the truth is that the Bruins are unlikely to acquire a center that successfully bridges the gap between whatever they have and the three-zone monster that is Barkov, or the 69-goal scorer that is Matthews. But all true Cup contenders begin down the middle, and it’s a ‘must address’ for the Bruins this offseason.
“I mean, we pride ourselves on being two-way players. That’s what I strive to be. That’s what we’ve had here [with] Bergeron, Krejci, those guys,” Coyle said when asked about a potential addition down the middle this offseason. “That’s what you want: Someone who’s played both ends of the ice, produces, meshes well, and is a good team guy. You can always add in that department and make it better. If that’s the plan, we’ll welcome a guy like that with open arms.”
Notable free-agent centers that may fit that bill include Elias Lindholm, Chandler Stephenson, and Sean Monahan.
Bruins have a keeper on backend
Apr 2, 2024; Nashville, Tennessee, USA; Boston Bruins defenseman Mason Lohrei (6) waits for a face off during the second period against the Nashville Predators at Bridgestone Arena. (Christopher Hanewinckel/USA TODAY Sports)
Truth be told, I think the Bruins have a few too many players who almost appear to psych themselves out when it comes to the postseason and the stakes of these games. They get a little too jacked up, they grip the sticks a little too tight, and they make mental mistakes that they don’t make in, say, Games 43 and 67 of the regular season.
One player who was shockingly ready for the moment: Mason Lohrei.
Whether it was taking a chance with a ‘skill’ play in his own zone or in the attacking zone, Lohrei never looked stunned by the moment in front of him. In fact, he seemed to embrace it. He was huge in the games where the Bruins were actually able to break the puck out of their own zone, and similar to Swayman, his swagger rubbed off on teammates.
With the way the game is trending, the Bruins are going to need all the skill they can get. And being 6-foot-4 and having those kind of natural puck skills, and as a defenseman? There’s an awful lot you can do with that. Especially when the confidence to make those plays and take those chances is not only there, but seemingly encouraged.
I’m not sure that I’m ready to say that the Bruins have to carve out a top-four role for Lohrei out of the gate next season (though I would say they should leave that door open for him to grab that spot in training camp), but they should absolutely consider giving him top power-play unit responsibilities in 2024-25.
Needed: More natural goal scoring
Feb 22, 2024; Calgary, Alberta, CAN; Boston Bruins right wing David Pastrnak (88) skates during the first period against the Calgary Flames at Scotiabank Saddledome. (Sergei Belski/USA TODAY Sports)
Similar to the center issues rearing their head at the worst possible time and really as the games and talent levels intensified, Boston’s lack of natural goal-scoring skill was on display throughout the postseason, as teams were able to completely key in on David Pastrnak and by all means force the Bruins’ other scorers to beat them.
That played out to the Bruins scoring just eight goals over their final five games of their second-round series with Florida, and what felt like Pastrnak’s most limited postseason to date, with just four goals and eight points in 13 games played. In fact, if we look at this from a pure points-per-game perspective, this was indeed Pastrnak’s worst postseason, with this year’s 0.62 points per game even worse than his 0.67 points per game in his first postseason (2017).
For what it’s worth, it wasn’t for a lack of trying on the part of No. 88. He was trying to be a one-man breakout, a one-man zone-entry, and even brought a more physical, complete game to the first two games of the Florida series. But it also appeared to grind him down by the end of the series, and sloppiness followed. For as good as Pastrnak is and was for the club this season, the Bruins gotta get some more natural offensive help to force the opponent to adjust and spread out their defensive focuses to both free up their top talent and make it so he doesn’t have to be a one-man band.
This feels like a solid offseason for the Bruins to address that, too, with plenty of scoring available in this year’s free-agent market, and with the Bruins possessing enough cap space to make a potentially big splash.
Shots, shots, and more shots
Apr 6, 2024; Boston, Massachusetts, USA; Boston Bruins center Morgna Geekie (39) shoots the puck while Florida Panthers defenseman Gustav Forsling (42) defends during the first period at TD Garden. (Bob DeChiara/USA TODAY Sports)
This postseason turned me into the villain. And by villain, I mean the pure gremlin screaming, “Oh my God! Shoot!” at players with approximately 500 times the skill I’ve ever possessed. Much to the chagrin of blood pressures around New England, the Bruins’ belief that they were not a shot volume team became a maddening theme of this postseason.
It was said by both Jim Montgomery and Don Sweeney, as if they were trying to reinforce it themselves. But that message didn’t really seem to resonate with the players on the Bruins. All throughout the postseason, countless players told me that they felt that the Bruins needed to shoot more and that “any shot is a good shot this time of year.” In fact, only one player spoke to me about the potential pitfalls of ‘just sending a shot on goal’ when in the offensive zone.
If there was any sort of disconnect with the Bruins, as an organization, it seemed to be when it came to the offensive approach that stressed quality over quantity. If only because they were going up against goalies that had shown leaks when it came to quantity, especially in the second round against the Panthers’ Sergei Bobrovsky. Now, first of all, a tip of the cap to Bobrovsky. He got better as the series went along. But his series also came with a split personality disorder.
When it came to high-danger shots, Bobrovsky turned aside 39 of the 45 shots thrown his way (an .867 save percentage, which is actually damn solid when it comes to high-danger looks). But when it came to low- and mid-danger shots, Bobrovsky allowed seven goals on 73 shots (a .904 save percentage). Yes, you read that right: Bobrovsky actually allowed more low and mid-danger goals than he did high-danger goals in six games against the Bruins.
Now, the additional frustration within that is that the Bruins by all means built a team designed to score mucker goals. There’s really no reason to ice a bottom-six featuring Justin Brazeau. James van Riemsdyk, and Pat Maroon if the plan isn’t to send pucks through and hope for rebounds and second and third-chance opportunities. And when Bobrovsky proved to have difficulty handling shots from distance, the Bruins simply didn’t exploit it enough.
Like the players themselves said, there’s no such thing as a bad shot in the spring months. Let’s see if that’s something that the Bruins’ coaches and front-office heads embrace between now and next year’s run.
