NHL Season Recap - Boston Bruins

Boston Bruins

2016-17 season: 44-31-7, 95 points Lost to Ottawa 4-2 in the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals	Head Coach: Bruce Cassidy (2017)
3rd Place Atlantic Division	General Manager: Don Sweeney (2015)
7th Place Eastern Conference	AHL Affiliate: Providence Bruins ECHL Affiliate: Atlanta Gladiators
Draft Position: Will have the 18th pick in the draft

Top Forwards

POS	Age	Name	GP	Points	Goals	Assists	+/-	CF%
LW	28	Brad Marchand	80	85	39	46	18	60.7
RW	20	David Pastrnak	75	70	34	36	11	57.8
C	30	David Krejci	82	54	23	31	-12	54.2
C	31	Patrice Bergeron	79	53	21	32	12	61.8
C	25	Ryan Spooner	78	39	11	28	-8	54.5
RW	32	David Backes	74	38	17	21	2	56.4
C	36	Dominic Moore	82	25	11	14	2	47.8
C	22	Frank Vatrano	44	18	10	8	-3	57.4
C	27	Riley Nash	81	17	7	10	-1	51.8
C	26	Tim Schaller	59	14	7	7	-6	49.5

Top Defensemen

POS	Age	Name	GP	Points	Goals	Assists	+/-	CF%
D	25	Torey Krug	81	51	8	43	-10	58.0
D	39	Zdeno Chara	75	29	10	19	18	52.4
D	20	Brandon Carlo	82	16	6	10	9	52.0
D	24	Colin Miller	61	13	6	7	0	60.3
D	29	Kevan Miller	58	13	3	10	1	53.6

Top Goaltenders

POS	Age	Name	Games Started	W/L Record	Shutouts	GAA		Save %
G	29	Tuukka Rask	63	37-20-5	8	2.23	.915
G	30	Anton Khudobin	14	7-6-1	0	2.64	.904
G	24	Zane McIntyre	3	0-4-1	0	3.96	.858
G	23	Malcolm Subban	1	0-1-0	0	5.81	.813

Trades Made During the Season

What They Acquired	Team They Traded With	In Exchange For
LW Drew Stafford	Winnipeg Jets	Conditional 2018 6th RD Pick

Impending Free Agents

POS	Age	Name	2016-17 Cap Hit
LW	31	Drew Stafford	$4,350,000
D	36	John-Michael Liles	$2,000,000
C	36	Dominic Moore	$900,000
LW	26	Zac Rinaldo	$850,000
D	25	Chris Casto	$650,000
D	27	Tommy Cross	$600,000
D	28	Alex Grant	$600,000
RW	25	Tyler Randell	$600,000

Draft Needs

• The Bruins have just six picks in the upcoming draft but luckily they appear to have a good core at both the NHL level and in the minors.  I think that they should spend their first round pick on a defenseman since their NHL defensemen are going to undergo a turnover in the next couple of seasons as Zdeno Chara and Adam McQuaid move on or retire.  Luckily for the Bruins they do have replacements available right now in the way of Charlie McAvoy, Jakub Zboril, and Ryan Lindgren and that doesn't even include Brandon Carlo, who has already emerged as a solid NHL defenseman.  The future call ups of these prospects means that the Bruins will need to replace these prospects in order to continue turning over their NHL roster.

What I Said About Them Before the Season

• Last offseason when writing the Bruins' season preview, I hated the moves the front office made.  They brought in veteran David Backes by signing him to a five-year deal with an average cap hit of $6 million.  There is no way that he will be able to live up to that contract in the final years of the deal.  I also questioned how effective Zdeno Chara would be this season considering his size and the fact that he had lost quite a bit of footspeed in recent seasons.  I wrote about Tuukka Rask and how he is the Bruins best chance to have success this season and that the team would be competing for a playoff spot all season long but was uncertain if they would make them.

Success/Failure

• Failure - I know that the Bruins made the playoffs this season after missing them two years in a row, but this is a franchise that needs to win series in the playoffs to be successful.  They have a payroll that shows the team is striving to win a Stanley Cup and anything short of reaching the conference finals is a failure.  They were the second best puck possession team this season and arguably the strongest puck possession line in hockey of Brad Marchand, Patrice Bergeron, and David Pastrnak.  I'm not certain how much this was a result of Claude Julien's coaching but I have to think that the had a role in it.  Regardless of whatever impact Julien had, the team's record cost him his job.  I have to think that this was the result of the team's struggles in other areas, especially in shooting and save percentages and, therefore, PDO.  There were one of the worst teams in the league in all three of these areas, despite Tuukka Rask having a very good season in net for the Bruins.  They were a very good powerplay and penalty killing team and rode a hot powerplay to success this season.  Their lack of offense ended up costing them in the playoffs as they never scored more than three goals in any game of their series against the Senators.  They did have a couple of bright spots this season, however, as Marchand and Pastrnak have continued to prove that they are two of the best offensive talents in the league. The Bruins also got great play out of defense prospects Brandon Carlo and Charlie McAvoy and both appear to be future franchise defensemen.

Offseason Needs

• The Bruins have just $10 million to spent this offseason and need to use some of that to re-sign David Pastrnak.  Boston has to do whatever is needed in order to ensure that Pastrnak is on the Bruins' roster for the long-term.  His contract will probably be north of $6 million per season and that will make a substantial dent into the team's cap space.  I think that there is a chance that the Bruins lose Adam McQuaid or Kevan Miller in the Expansion Draft and that would help the team free up some cap space.  They will also have to figure out what they are going to do with Ryan Spooner who has had a tumultuous relationship with the team this season, whether it was Julien or Cassidy behind the bench.  He has shown the ability to produce offensively but it often comes with the price of lackluster defensive play.  Hopefully they'll have the space available after re-signing their RFAs to bring in some forward depth in order to help produce more goals. They struggled offensively all season long and need to find some players who have better shooting percentages.  The Bruins have now gotten back to the playoffs but will certainly need to do some work this offseason in order to return next season.  One bright area for this franchise is that they have done a masterful job at turning over their roster from the veteran group that won a Stanley Cup to a younger core with even more prospects waiting to get called up to the NHL.  It looked as though the Bruins would be in the same situation as Chicago or Los Angeles but instead they have been able to draft and develop well and they shouldn't find themselves in a salary cap struggle going forward.

*All stats and information came from hockey-reference.com, rosterresource.com, spotrac.com, NHL.com, hockeydb.com, capfriendly.com, tsn.ca, and eliteprospects.com*