Boston Bruins: Time for Jack Studnicka and Anders Bjork to step up
With both Jack Studnicka and Anders Bjork making the final cut for the Boston Bruins, they will need to prove that they deserve to be on the playoff roster.
While Anders Bjork spent a majority of the 2019-2020 regular season with the Boston Bruins, Jack Studnicka was down in Providence improving his game.
At the end of the AHL regular season, Jack Studnicka led the Providence Bruins with 23 goals and 26 assists. He also averaged 0.82 points per game which was the best for the team. Studnicka along with Paul Carey was also chosen to represent the P-Bruins at the AHL All-Star Game!
He made his NHL debut this season appearing in two games with Boston and scored one goal and one assist. In only his second season in the AHL, Studnicka has shown that he has a lot of potential to be one of Boston’s future stars.
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Anders Bjork has also been of the bright spots for the Bruins young players. While Bjork was one of the more quiet players, he still had a large impact on the Boston Bruins’ success during the regular season. He is very versatile and was able to play well on virtually every line that Bruce Cassidy put him on. Bjork also does very well in creating plays that lead to good offensive chances.
He ended the regular season with 9 goals and 10 assists through 58 games. Bjork definitely has both the skill and speed to succeed in the league. I think as he gets more experience in the league, Bjork will be one of the staples in the Boston Bruins roster.
That being said while Bjork and Studnicka are both incredibly talented players, neither of them have any Stanley Cup Playoffs experience. While some aspects of regular season play can be carried over into the playoffs, a majority of playoff hockey is completely different from regular season hockey. For starters, you’re facing the best of the best in the league.
But also hockey is just such an unpredictable sport that even a team or player who dominated the entire regular season can absolutely choke come playoff time. Also considering the fact that players haven’t played hockey in four months a lot of players are going to be rusty going into the playoffs.
However, Bjork and Studnicka have a great group of veterans like Brad Marchand, Zdeno Chara and Patrice Bergeron who have plenty of experience in the playoffs that can help them through their first playoff run.
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All in all, the Boston Bruins are putting a lot of trust in both Anders Bjork and Jack Studnicka to prove to them that they made the right choice of bringing them to the ‘bubble’ to make a run for the Stanley Cup.