Bruins Must Overcome Key Issue to Land Playoff Spot

The Boston Bruins have Stanley Cup ambitions in 2025, and for the first time in over a month the team is in a top-three spot in the Atlantic Division. For a brief moment, the team is above the jumbled mess that is the Eastern Conference Wild Card race.

Can the Bruins stay there? That is the question of the year for the Boston hockey club. The former Eastern Conference juggernaut is now a decade removed from their last Stanley Cup and five years removed from their last appearance in the Finals. Combine that with the fact that there are just six points separating the wild card occupants from the team in 14th place in the conference, and it's easy for the Bruins to feel discouraged about their championship abilities.

Exacerbating the matter is one gigantic issue that the Bruins need to overcome in order to make the playoffs and have any hope of winning a Stanley Cup in 2025. Boston has one of the worst goal differentials in the NHL this season, and they have very little hopes of correcting that by the end of the regular season.

Why is that important? Well, for starters, regular goal differential is a key indicator of postseason success. Going back through the 2014-2015 season, every single Stanley Cup champion without exception had a positive goal differential. The lowest regular season goal differential recorded by a Cup winner in that span was the St. Louis Blues, who finished that campaign at a +24.

The Bruins currently boast a goal differential of -22. If the playoffs started today, they would be the only team in the Eastern Conference with a negative differential.

What makes that even more concerning is the team's offensive punch has been lacking all season long. Aside from superstar winger David Pastrnak, the scoring is fewer and farther in between. Captain Brad Marchand has 17 goals through 50 games, but the next leading scorer after that is forward Pavel Zacha with 11 goals, 17 assists, and 28 points. Their $49 million-center Elias Lindholm has been an objectively poor fit and has struggled to produce. He has just eight goals and 24 points in his first season in Boston.

The Bruins have major issues, yet still are in the playoff race. With the way this season has gone, they are likely to remain in the hunt for the rest of the second half. But in order to make good on this season and sneak into the postseason, they have to overcome this glaring and concerning goal differential issue.