The 2014-15 NHL regular season is in the books, and it was far from a good one for the Boston Bruins. There were some decent individual performances and the Bruins still managed to scrape together 96 points on the season, but it’s difficult to hand out a lot of “attaboys” when a hockey club this talented misses the cut for the Stanley Cup playoffs.
“We have a talented group in [the dressing room] and I don’t think talent was ever the question. I think it was just our consistency and mentally being focused ready to play, and play hard,” said Chris Kelly, nailing it pretty perfectly. “Working on the game plan night in and night out [was a problem].”
So with the Bruins done for the season setting up vacation plans and tee times far too early this season, here is a final report card for a Black and Gold team that probably won’t enjoy their grades very much.
Patrice Bergeron: A- -- Bergeron finished second on the team with goals (23), led the team in assists (32) and points (55), shots on net (234) and won 60.2 percent of his faceoffs. He had a bit of a slow start while powering through some nagging injuries early in the season, but he led the way for the Bruins down the stretch. He wasn’t as perfect defensively as he normally is because of the struggles around him, but the Bs would have made the playoffs if everybody else played as hard as No. 37 did.
Loui Eriksson: B+ -- Eriksson showed what he’s really capable of after two concussions wiped out his previous season, and left him as a shell of himself. He scored 22 goals, led the Bs with six power-play goals and topped all Bruins forwards with 18:29 of ice time. He’s not the 30-goal, 70-point guy people thought they were getting from Dallas in the Tyler Seguin trade, and he never found a comfortable fit beyond the third line. He’s a useful player to be sure, but he also definitely takes some nights off.
Carl Soderberg: C+ -- The Big Swede still finished third on the Bruins in points despite a very inconsistent season, but he struggled big time when facing better defenders with David Krejci injured and out of the lineup. There were far too many nights when he didn’t play anywhere close to the 6-foot-3, 215-pound big body capable of doing damage in front of the net. He never showed up for the must win game against the Panthers at the end of the season, and that’s tough to overlook.
Milan Lucic: C- -- The final numbers weren’t horrendous (18 goals and 44 points) and he still finished in the NHL’s top 10 for registered hits, but he was way too inconsistent throughout the season. He didn’t play with his usual ferocious attitude, and that had a real trickle-down effect on the rest of the roster. One reason for optimism: he looked like a really good fit with Ryan Spooner and David Pastrnak in the last few months of the season.
Boston Bruins
Brad Marchand: B+ -- Marchand led the Bruins with 24 goals scored on the season, had five game-winning goals for the Black and Gold in some pretty big spots for the team. It wasn’t his best season and he continues to be streaky, but Marchand stepped up as a leader and a producer for a team that badly needed both this season. He did have a slump toward the end of the year, but perked up offensively in the last couple of games.
Dougie Hamilton: B+ -- Dougie Hamilton was the team’s second leading point producer when he went down with injury, led all B’s defenseman with 42 points and topped all B’s players with 15 power-play points. There is still some work to be done in the defensive zone for the 21-year-old Hamilton, but he’s got the goods moving the puck, and controlling the puck.
Reilly Smith: D -- The winger posted 13 goals and 40 points in a step down from his breakout 20-goal campaign two years ago, and really needs to be better if he’s going to be playing with Patrice Bergeron and Brad Marchand. Smith had just four goals in 33 games after the All-Star break, and really seemed to be down on himself in the second half of the season. Confidence is a big issue with this player, but he just doesn’t feel like a Bruins player.
Torey Krug: B+ -- Krug put together another strong season with 12 goals and 39 points, and averaged 19:36 of ice time per game while leading the B’s with 12 power-play assists. He stepped up and played well when Dougie Hamilton went down with an injury, and is one of the few Bruins players that seemed to want the puck on his stick with the game on the line. He’s a keeper for the Black and Gold with the right approach on and off the ice.
David Krejci: C -- It was a season of frustration for David Krejci, who was hampered all year by injuries and was a shell of himself when coming back from the knee injury at the end of the season. The Bruins could really use a simple, straight forward, injury-free season from the Czech Republic center when he suits up next season.
Chris Kelly: D+ -- Kelly was pretty good in the first half of the season skating with Loui Eriksson and Carl Soderberg, and he’s always a good leader in the dressing room. But Kelly closed the season with zero goals in his final 27 games, and had just three points in those 27 games while bouncing between the third and fourth lines. Kelly is no offensive powerhouse, but he needed to kick in more opportunistic offense than that.
David Pastrnak: A+ -- The youngest player in the NHL this season who probably wouldn’t have been in Boston were it not for their major salary cap issues. He finished with 10 goals and 27 points in 46 games, and has an extremely bright future for the Black and Gold. He was one of the few real bright spots this season.
Zdeno Chara: C -- The 38-year-old is slowing down, and will probably continue to see his body start to break down with injuries as well. Chara said he was feeling great at the end of the season, but he had three points and a minus-3 rating in 20 games during March and April. Chara looked extremely creaky and old in the second night of back-to-backs, or the third game in four days. He can still defend against the other team’s best players on most nights, but he’s nowhere near the dominant player he was even a couple of years ago.
Ryan Spooner: B –- The 23-year-old showed himself and the Bruins what he could do at the NHL level in the final few months of this season, and pushed his way into the picture for the B’s third-line center role next season. The speed, skill, confidence on the PP and creativity with the puck are all things the Bruins need more of.
Dennis Seidenberg: D- –- The first month or two was a struggle coming back from knee surgery, and it seemed like he never found his groove moving the puck out of the D-zone in the transition game. He still played tough finishing second on the team in hits and leading the team in blocked shots, but he also finished the season as a minus player. Like Chara, Seidenberg looked pretty long in the tooth in situations where the schedule beat the Bruins down a little bit.
Daniel Paille: F –- The final numbers actually weren’t as bad as his season turned out to be. He brought nothing to the table for months at a time, and was part of a B’s fourth line that was a weakness all season. Paille was a team-worst minus-9 on the season and was scratched for the final nine games of the year. It was a tough end to a very solid career with the B’s as he seemed extremely lost for the whole year.
Gregory Campbell: D –- Another member of the formerly excellent Merlot Line that was watching games from the press box by the very end, and isn’t the same player that he was three or four years ago. He hasn’t been the same since the Evgeni Malkin shot that broke his leg in the 2013 Stanley Cup playoffs, and seems to have permanently lost some skating speed. But at least he was one of the few Bruins that still seemed to be personally affected by what was happening to the team on the ice.
Kevan Miller: B -– The Bruins defensemen led the team with a plus-20 on the season, played 18:02 of ice time per game and played hurt pretty much the entire season until his shoulder finally gave out. He’s not a slick puck-mover, but he does the rugged, stay-at-home job very well for a guy with a miniscule cap hit.
Adam McQuaid: B- -- McQuaid was asked to do more than he’s probably capable of as a top four D-man, but that’s more a reflection of Boston’s desperate roster than the player himself. McQuaid was one of the few B’s players that brought physical intensity on a regular season, and truly seemed like he was playing with some emotion. He was a hard player to play against, did the thankless things like blocking shots and deserves credit for that.
Matt Bartkowski: F –- The B’s defenseman was okay at times, but he basically became a ticking time bomb in the defensive zone by the end of the season. He makes way too many mistakes without making up for it with plays at the other end of the ice. He can skate, and that’s about the extent of his skill set at the NHL level. He could really use a new NHL address for next season as a fresh start might do his game some favors.
Seth Griffith: B –- The youngster was definitely ahead of schedule this season, and showed the hands and skill with a couple of nifty highlight reel goals early in the season. But he also showed he needs more time at the minor league level to build up the confidence, and the ability to stand out at the NHL level despite below average size and average skating ability.
Zach Trotman: B –- The 24-year-old defenseman was solid in his late season call-up when Dougie Hamilton went down with injury, and showed that he should be a factor for the NHL club next season.
Tuukka Rask: B – The reigning Vezina Trophy winner really wasn’t good in the first half of the season, but posted a .931 save percentage after the regular season calendar hit January. He smashed his career-high and tied a franchise record by appearing in 70 games for the Bruins, and basically drove himself into the ground in the final few months of the season. Most nights he was the team’s best player when it mattered, and ended up having a solid season all things considered.
Niklas Svedberg: C- -- The numbers were solid for Svedberg as a rookie in an unfamiliar role, but he failed to give Tuukka Rask the rest he needed in January and February as the backup goaltender.
Incomplete: Simon Gagne, Max Talbot, Craig Cunningham, Matt Fraser, Brett Connolly, Joe Morrow, David Warsofsky, Brian Ferlin, Matt Lindblad, Bobby Robins, Alex Khokhlachev, Jordan Caron and Malcolm Subban.
Claude Julien: C -- Given the challenges of the roster and the heavy expectations, Claude Julien did a pretty good job of holding things together in a very frustrating season. But the bottom line was he couldn’t get the performances he needed at the right time, and his team looked unprepared to play on too many nights. Some of that falls on the coach as well as the players, and his handling of Ryan Spooner to start the season was poor at best.
Peter Chiarelli: D- -- Serious salary cap problems put the whammy on the roster to start the season, and the dressing room chemistry was altered far too much when Shawn Thornton, Johnny Boychuk and Jarome Iginla were ripped off the roster. The trade deadline moves to get Brett Connolly and Max Talbot were both pretty good trades, but the scoring issues, the struggling fourth line and the patchwork defensemen corps all can be attributed to his team-building issues.