Longtime NHL Analyst Craig Button Calls Out the Boston Bruins
The Boston Bruins are in an absolute free fall, having lost five in a row, and NHL analyst Craig Button is showing no mercy and publicly bashed the team.
The Boston Bruins are in for a bit of a rude awakening this season, seeing them fall way short of the more dominant form they have been displaying in the previous years.
At 20-18-5, they come third in the Atlantic Division, trailing Toronto 27-13-2 and Florida 25-15-2.
Their current poor performances were made known when TSN's Director of Scouting Craig Button pinpointed what the core problem was: a misfiring offense.
You can watch Craig Button's interview here
Boston's offense has hit the skids. The team is averaging 2.58 goals per game, 29th in the NHL.
Its power play stands at an abysmal 12.4%, ranking as the second worst in the league, which falls into the category of a glaring weakness for a team that used to thrive on special teams.
And when the figures are this staggering, Button won't be wrong if he said the Bruins are an offensively starved team.
The Bruins have been unable to make up for this on the defensive end. They allow 3.14 goals per game, which is 20th in the league, and they're killing penalties at only a 75.9% clip, which underlines how uneven they are at both ends of the ice.
Button added that their game on the defensive side of things, one that traditionally was a strong suit, has been spotty at best.
Now, considering said slump, David Pastrnak keeps shining. He has a team-high 17 goals and 42 points, but the supporting cast around him just hasn't yet found a consistent pulse.
Between the pipes, Jeremy Swayman and Joonas Korpisalo have been up and down and can't seem to be consistent in the net that the Bruins need so badly.
From consecutive strong seasons, including that record 135-point season in 2022-23, the downturn in Boston is legit. The gap from where they are now and where they had been, grows greater by the day, and one wonders how they're going to turn it around.
| G | A | PTS | ||
| Jesper Boqvist | 2 | - | 2 | |
| Pierre-Luc Dubois | 2 | - | 2 | |
| Connor Bedard | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Matthew Tkachuk | - | 2 | 2 | |
| Logan Cooley | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Conor Garland | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Eetu Luostarinen | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Ilya Mikheyev | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Frank Nazar | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Juuso Parssinen | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Sam Reinhart | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Aleksander Barkov | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Tyler Bertuzzi | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Colton Dach | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Gustav Forsling | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Quinn Hughes | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Seth Jones | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Clayton Keller | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Anton Lundell | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Connor McMichael | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Complete stats | ||||
| STANDINGS 2024-2025 | ||||||
TOP 10 | GP | W | L | OL | PTS | |
Golden Knights | 40 | 28 | 9 | 3 | 59 | |
Capitals | 41 | 27 | 10 | 4 | 58 | |
Jets | 42 | 28 | 12 | 2 | 58 | |
Wild | 41 | 26 | 11 | 4 | 56 | |
Maple Leafs | 42 | 27 | 13 | 2 | 56 | |
Oilers | 40 | 25 | 12 | 3 | 53 | |
Devils | 43 | 25 | 15 | 3 | 53 | |
Panthers | 42 | 25 | 15 | 2 | 52 | |
Kings | 38 | 23 | 10 | 5 | 51 | |
Stars | 39 | 25 | 13 | 1 | 51 | |
| Conference | Cumulative | ||||||