Boston Bruins: What to expect from Anders Bjork in 2021
What can we expect from Boston Bruins’ winger Anders Bjork for the 2021 season?
At 24 years old, Boston Bruins‘ winger Anders Bjork has had an up and down career so far. His rookie season was quite successful as he was scoring 0.40 points per game but was cut short due to a shoulder injury.
Bjork struggled his sophomore season as he only scored three points (one goal, two assists) in 20 games. His points per game dropped from 0.40 to just 0.15.
However, last season, Bjork got the longest look in the NHL of his short career with him suiting up for 58 games. Bjork was much closer to his 2017-18 paces with nine goals and 10 assists for 19 points.
These totals average out to 0.16 goals per game and 0.17 assists per game for 0.33 points per game. In his rookie season, Bjork scored 0.13 goals per game and 0.27 assists per game. Although last season wasn’t as good as his rookie season, it was definitely a step in the right direction.
For 2021, I expect Bjork to spend most, if not all, of the season on the B’s third line with Charlie Coyle and Nick Ritchie, Craig Smith, or Ondrej Kase. Bjork has the ability to play on either the left side or right side of the rink, so while David Pastrnak is still out, he may be asked to play right wing instead of left.
With this, my production expectations for Bjork are that he’ll slightly improve from last season, but still won’t be as good as his rookie season. I think his rookie season showed his ceiling and he won’t reach that again for another year or two.
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So, I’ll say Bjork averages a 0.15 goals per game in 2021 — just 0.01 worse than last season — but his assists per game will increase to 0.20 because he’ll have right wings on his line that are able to score for a 0.35 points per game — 0.02 better than the previous season.
Bjork has also yet to play a full season, either being scratched or injured he has missed games. With that, I think Bjork plays 48 of the 56 games this season.
So with the paces I think Bjork will average, he would register seven goals and 10 assists for 17 points in 48 games.
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I think we’ve seen Bjork’s ceiling. At best he’s a borderline second line winger, but overall he’s a bottom-six winger. He may have one or two seasons better than his rookie season, but I think they won’t be for another year or two as he’s still developing and gaining strength back from the shoulder injury that ended his rookie campaign.