Boston Bruins: Winger Anders Bjork will have a breakout 2020-21 season

Winger Anders Bjork will have a breakout season for the Boston Bruins in 2020-21.

Anders Bjork was drafted by the Boston Bruins in the fifth round (146th overall) in the 2014 NHL Draft. After being drafted, Bjork would elect to play college hockey with the Notre Dame Fighting Irish.

Over three seasons with the Fighting Irish, Bjork would play in 115 games and score 109 points (40 goals, 69 assists). After his junior year at Notre Dame, Bjork would sign a three-year, entry-level contract (ELC) with the Bruins in May of 2017 — effectively ending his college hockey career.

The Bruins wasted no time exposing Bjork to the NHL. At just 21 years old, Bjork made the 2017-18 Bruins’ roster out of camp. However, he wasn’t able to regularly crack the lineup, playing in just 30 games and also spending nine games in the AHL with the Providence Bruins.

Although he played in just 30 games that year, Bjork played relatively well scoring 12 points (four goals, eight assists) and having decent Corsi (CF%) and Fenwick (FF%) percentage scores of 54.0 and 52.4.

Bjork’s rookie season would have a rough ending, as he suffered a shoulder injury in a game against the Anaheim Ducks on Jan. 30, 2018. This injury required surgery and kept Bjork sidelined for around six months.

Since his rookie season, Bjork hasn’t had the same success. His sophomore season was dreadful. In 20 games, the Wisconsin native registered just three points (one goal, two assists) and his CF% and FF% dropped significantly to 48.1 and 50.7.

This season, Bjork seems to have gotten back on track as he got the longest look in the NHL of his career. In 58 games, Bjork put up career-bests of 19 points, nine goals, and 10 assists.

These paces are very similar to his rookie season paces. His goals per game went from 0.13 to 0.16, assists per game from 0.27 to 0.17, and points per game from 0.4 to 0.33.

Why will Anders Bjork have a breakout 2020-21 season for the Boston Bruins?

After suffering a shoulder injury that ended his rookie season early, Bjork finally seems to be fully recovering and back to his 2017-18 form.

After playing in just 20 NHL games in 2018-19, Bjork played in 58 this season and was given an increase of average ice time by over a minute.

For his entire three-year NHL career, Bjork has mainly played in the team’s bottom six. However, with star wingers David Pastrnak and Brad Marchand expected to miss some time early in the season due to offseason surgeries, there’s a strong possibility we see Bjork on one of David Krejci‘s wings in 2020-21.

This is definitely a situation in which we can see Bjork’s full potential. Playing alongside the playmaking abilities of Krejci and also either having Ondrej Kase or Craig Smith on your line is a large improvement from what he’s had in his two previous seasons and could lead to improved offensive production.

If Bjork starts off hot and clicks with his new linemates, we could see him hit the 40-point milestone for the first time in his career.

There’s no doubt that Bjork will be looking to take the next step in his career after battling to get back to his rookie-year form after suffering a shoulder injury that required surgery and prematurely ended a rather successful 2017-18 for him.