If you are an NHL fan who hasn't paid attention to the Boston Bruins from outside the fanbase, you might think that things are going very well for Marco Sturm's club through the first seven games of the 2026-27 season.
Why is that? Well, the Black and Gold are 5-2-0 with a plus-10 goal differential, the top team in the Atlantic Division. Sure, that is a rather big surprise, given the fact that questions were going into the season about just how much depth they had in the scoring department.
However, despite sitting at 5-2-0, everything isn't as rosy as it may seem for the Bruins. There have been games where maybe they should have won, but they did, thanks to the goaltending of Jeremy Swayman. That was the case on Tuesday night in a 6-3 victory over the San Jose Sharks to begin a four-game road trip in Northern California. Despite the win, there is one concerning trend that Boston has that needs to be figured out sooner rather than later, and on this trip.
Bruins need to address turnovers and shot margin
Let's take Tuesday's win over the Sharks as an example. San Jose outshot the Bruins, 38-26, on the scoreboard and had many more attempts, 53, compared to the Bruins' 37 at 5-on-5. Why was that? Well, part of it was because of San Jose's speed and because of Boston's inability to get pucks out of the zone and create more scoring chances for the Sharks.
San Jose scored two of their three goals on the power play, and the third came seconds after a Nikita Zadorov penalty ended, and he wasn't even able to get back into the play. Did we mention that the Bruins have a penalty problem that hasn't been addressed yet? Of course we have.
So here's the thing: somehow, thanks mainly to Swayman, the Bruins have been able to avoid losing those games. It has been pretty eye-opening: the turnovers and the failures to clear pucks have been concerning, but they have been hidden by Swayman's play. The one game where they didn't survive was the one game Swayman lost, against the Ottawa Senators 10 days ago.
Three games remain on the trip against the Anaheim Ducks on Friday, the Los Angeles Kings on Saturday, and the Dallas Stars next Tuesday. All three of those could expose the Black and Gold's biggest problems with turnovers, penalties, and being outshot, and the results could be ugly. In another game, it was hidden by the play of Swayman and his ability to make some big high-danger saves.
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