As we enter the final month of the NHL season, likely Eastern Conference top seeds Washington will undoubtedly be keeping a keen eye on the bottom end of the playoffs where their first round opponents will be decided.
At the moment, it seems a safe NHL bet that the team they would most likely prefer to avoid is the Boston Bruins, one of the in-form teams in the conference, having won seven of their last 10 games and looking impressive in the main.
The Bruins were expected to be much better than a fourth-placed team this season in the Northeast Division, but Buffalo, Ottawa, and Montreal have all performed above expectations to leave them in a precarious position.
Nine points, though, is the gap between the first-placed Sabres and Boston, with the Bruins having a couple of games in hand on the Senators and Canadiens as they look to push their way up through the seedings from their current eighth.
There are teams queueing up outside the top eight as well, but Boston have used their run of form to move five points clear of the struggling New York Rangers, and if they can continue to improve their scoring they are going to be a dangerous post-season floater, and threat to anyone.
Of course the loss of Marc Savard to a potentially season-ending concussion is a blow, but there is enough talent on this Bruins roster to get the job done without him, despite having one of the lowest goal-scoring records in the conference.
Indeed, one of their most impressive performances of the season came last week when they smashed five goals past Philadelphia on the road, a game in which Patrice Bergeron (three points) and David Krejci (two) stepped forward. They can put out three solid forward lines, and have some bite in the form of Milan Lucic and Shawn Thornton, but it is going to take some defensive improvement from the likes of Zdeno Chara and Dennis Wideman to give them hope if they are to beat the Capitals or potentially Pittsburgh, who they have a point to prove against after Savard’s recent injury in the game between the sides.
Wideman, in particular, has been booed by his own fans in recent weeks after a series of errors, but he is good enough to get over fan reactions and take charge of a second defensive pairing that is going to have to be in form by the time the Stanley Cup playoffs open in April.
Goaltending, with both Tim Thomas and youngster Tuukka Rask proving reliable, is in safe hands, so don’t sleep on these Bruins as you look towards the postseason.
