Game Preview #50: New Jersey Devils vs. Boston Bruins

On Ring of Honor night, the Devils look to snap themselves out of their horrible mid-season funk against the Bruins

The Matchup: New Jersey Devils (26-17-6) vs. Boston Bruins (23-19-6)

The Time: 7:00pm ET

The Broadcast: MSGSN, NESN, NHLN, Devils Radio Network

Last Devils Game

New Jersey hosted the Ottawa Senators on Sunday, and fell meekly by a final score of 2-1. Tomas Tatar had the lone goal as the Devils’ offense continued to sputter.

Last Bruins Game

Boston was in action on Monday, as they doubled up the San Jose Sharks, 6-3, at TD Garden. The Bruins actually trailed 3-2 entering the final period, but four goals in the final 20 minutes helped lift them to victory.

The Ring Of Honor Gets A New Member

We’ll discuss the current state of the Devils and touch on what the Bruins bring to the table in a moment. But for now, let’s take some time to acknowledge the great Jacques Lemaire. Tonight, Lemaire joins former owner John McMullen and three-time Stanley Cup champion Sergei Brylin in the franchise’s Ring of Honor. I couldn’t find any information about when exactly the ceremony starts. If I missed it please let me know in the comments section, but if the team never actually announced it, that seems like a pretty big piece of information to never make public. I would imagine it will start around 6:45pm or so.

In any case, Lemaire is a Devils’ legend and as worthy a candidate for this honor as any. He is the franchise’s all-time leader in wins with 276, and he of course led New Jersey to their very first Stanley Cup championship in 1995, sweeping the mighty Detroit Red Wings to secure the title.

Lemaire was already a legend from his playing days with the Montreal Canadiens, where he won a staggering eight Stanley Cups from 1967 to 1979. But it was in New Jersey where he solidified his legacy as not only one of the greatest players of all time, but one of the best coaches as well. Lemaire has lived an incredible hockey life, and now he takes his place among Devils royalty. A well deserved honor for the best coach the Scouts/Rockies/Devils franchise has ever seen.

Changes On The Horizon?

Since the Christmas break, the Devils have only scored four or more goals once, and that was in their first game out of the break. They’ve gone 11 straight games scoring three goals or fewer, including a back-to-back over the weekend in which they scored one goal in each game, unsurprisingly both losses.

There’s reason to believe a big part of this offensive disappearance is just straight up bad luck, as old friend CJ opines below:

But even if you buy that the Devils should be scoring more goals if they were just running luck-neutral, it’s undeniable that since Christmas the offense has not been generating as much as before the break. New Jersey is underwater in all the big puck possession metrics, and it just feels like the offense is stagnant. Head coach Sheldon Keefe has kept his forward lines remarkably consistent this season, seemingly only tweaking things on the margins for months at a time.

Well we might finally be seeing Keefe reach a breaking point:

The defensive pairings are the same, but Keefe performed major surgery on the forward lines. On the surface, I think slotting Jack Hughes between Ondrej Palat and Nate Bastian is pretty rough, but it’s not like the previous lines were doing anything before. Besides, the fourth line (which Bastian was on) had a pretty strong game last time out, so it might just be worth giving Bastian a shot with Hughes.

Meanwhile Nico Hischier and Jesper Bratt are reunited, and Timo Meier shifts down to the third line to give the team more balance. I’m not sure how I feel about these lines, but I really can’t think of many other solutions myself. Perhaps these units look strange on the surface, but with the offense struggling so mightily over the past month or so, any change is a welcome one to me. We’ll see if these lines actually see the light of day or not.

The End Is Near

The Boston Bruins have been Stanley Cup contenders since roughly the Coolidge Administration. Since 2007-08, the Bruins have missed the playoffs only twice, falling short in back-to-back seasons from 2014-2016. Other than that, it’s been close to two decades of contention. They won the Stanley Cup in 2010-11, and have been to two other Cup Finals. Just two seasons ago, they set an NHL record with a 65-win, 135-point season. You have to go back a long time to remember a genuine Boston rebuild.

But all good things must come to an end, and it appears the end might be nigh for the Bruins. After faceplanting out of the gate this season, they fired head coach Jim Montgomery and brought in Joe Sacco. Sacco helped right the ship a little, but he still hasn’t gotten his team fully back on course. At 23-19-6 entering tonight, Boston has lost more games than it has won. They are in danger of missing the playoffs for the first time since 2015-16.

A big part of the Bruins’ struggles can be attributed to Father Time. Longtime captain Zdeno Chara left years ago. Perhaps the greatest defensive forward of all time, Patrice Bergeron, retired after that record-breaking 2022-23 campaign (in which Boston couldn’t even get out of the first round, by the way). Longtime top-6 mainstay David Krejci is gone, the blueline outside of Charlie McAvoy has been stripped for parts, and current captain and one of the dirtiest players in the league Brad Marchand is slowing down significantly as he reaches his late-30’s. the only true superstar Boston has left is David Pastrnak (although McAvoy is close to be fair), and he alone cannot carry this team.

Boston is one of the oldest teams in the league, and their prospect pipeline has been bare for years now. We may very well be seeing the end of the Bruins’ reign.

A Look At The Numbers

So are the Bruins really an average to mediocre team now? Or are they still a quality squad that has been the victims of bad luck dragging them down? Taking a look at the numbers at Natural Stat Trick tells me it’s the former (all numbers 5-on-5):

Corsi For%: 48.35% (24th in the NHL)

Scoring Chances For%: 49.44% (19th)

High Danger Corsi For%: 50.32% (18th)

Expected Goals For%: 49.64% (22nd)

So aside from HDCF, the Bruins are losing the battle in every metric. So it’s not just bad puck luck causing their demise. But to be fair, Boston does seem to be suffering from bad puck luck as well. Their PDO on the season stands at .989, the 28th-worst mark in the league. That comes from a terrible shooting% of 10.01% (25th) and a horribly disappointing save% of .889% (24th).

That latter number is a big shock considering they employ Jeremy Swayman, a goalie considered to be one of the league’s best. Swayman (who most likely will get the start tonight) enters with a record of 15-15-4 with a save% of .897%. Since his first full season in 2021-22, Swayman has not registered a sv% worse than .914%. Perhaps his late start to the season brought on by his contract negotiation has thrown everything off. But whatever the case, Swayman has let down his team in a big way. Boston was already a club that relied heavily (probably too much) on elite goaltending to bail them out. Without that, they’ve become yet another run of the mill pretender in the middle of the league.

So is anyone in Boston having a genuinely strong season? Well David Pastrnak is the brightest star in the Bruins’ sky, and he continues to produce this season, so we’ll go with him. In 48 games, Pastrnak has 22 goals and 53 points. Perhaps not “Very top of the league” numbers, but still elite production. According to Natural Stat Trick, Pastrnak is still doing a solid job of driving play, with CF%, SCF%, HDCF%, and xGF% numbers all in the low-50’s. Again, not amazing stuff, but solid. He is clearly the most dangerous Bruin, and the Devils would be wise to mark him carefully this evening.

Meanwhile the cowardly rat himself, Brad Marchand, may very well be nearing the end. He enters with 17 goals and 37 points in 48 games, a far cry from his peak. The numbers at NST are not kind to him, as he is underwater in all the numbers I mentioned when talking about Pastrnak, coming in between 48%-49% in every category. Marchand is no longer the play-driving winger he once was. The Devils still can’t afford to underestimate him, but his days as an impact player might finally be over.

Finally, I would’ve said get ready to see a lot of Charlie McAvoy tonight, but Boston’s #1 defenseman has been out since the 11th due to injury. Head coach Joe Sacco intimated a couple days ago that McAvoy could return tonight, but that’s not a guarantee.

McAvoy leads the team with an average time on ice of 23:41, head and shoulders ahead of second place Hampus Lindholm (20:51). McAvoy has been a stud on the blueline for a long time now, and his Natural Stat Trick numbers are all pretty good (numbers between 50% and 54% in all categories). He continues to drive play, but with five goals and 20 points through 45 games played, he isn’t producing up to his usual standards. McAvoy has never been a huge point producer (his career high is 56 during the 2021-22 season) but this is below even his modest track record. Nevertheless, McAvoy still controls puck possession well. Again there’s no guarantee he plays tonight, but if he does return, if New Jersey can somehow win this matchup, they should be in good shape.

Projected Lineup

Here’s how the Bruins lined up in their last game against the Sharks:

With the possible exception of McAvoy’s return, expect much the same.

Your Take

What do you make of tonight’s game? Will the Devils finally get back in the win column? What do you think of the reconfigured lines? What are your fondest memories of Jacques Lemaire? As always, thanks for reading!