Anyone who missed the Boston Bruins' dismantling of the Utah Mammoth on Thursday night likely looked at the scoreboard this morning and assumed that it was a cup of coffee for starting netminder Jeremy Swayman. However, it was anything but, as the Mammoth were more deserving by the numbers.
Before you jump all over me and say the game is played on the ice and not on a spreadsheet, I agree. However, when I'm trying to make Swayman's Vezina and Hart Trophy case later this season, I'll lean on advanced analytics to drive the point home, so we may as well start using his goals-saved above expected as a tool now.
Swayman bailed the Bruins' defense out early in the Mammoth, as the NHL's newest city bombarded him with 17 shots in the first period. Boston escaped with a 3-0 lead from that onslaught, and then added three more goals to take a 6-0 lead after the second period. At this point in the game, the Mammoth were outshooting the Bruins 30-16.
Expected goals are an overblown stat, since the Stanley Cup isn't handed out to the expected champion every season, but Utah outscored Boston 4.2-2.1 in that metric on Thursday night. By comparison, the New York Islanders beat the Chicago Blackhawks 4-1 with expected goals finishing 3.4-2.3 in New York's favor. The Bruins really weren't supposed to beat the Mammoth.
The good news is that Sebastian Cossa had a terrible start, Karel Vejmelka looked like he was walking around Boston Commons all afternoon, not expecting to see any action in relief, and the Bruins escaped with a massive win after a disappointing loss on Monday night. Whether they deserved it is a moot point the day after a victory.
The downside of Thursday night's performance for Bruins
We can say we don't care the day after, but you can also admit the Bruins can't keep playing like this and think they'll get away with it. Swayman finished with a 3.16 GSAx against the Mammoth, which is reminiscent of some of his performances last season that made him a Vezina Trophy finalist. However, we may need a reminder of how last season ended.
Swayman was lights out in the playoffs, but the pressure of facing a constant barrage of offensive zone time from the Buffalo Sabres ended the Bruins' season early. They can't expect Swayman to keep carrying them through games, and still having the same problems pop up in Marco Sturm's second season with a new defensive structure is a bit concerning.
There are still 79 games for Boston to figure it out, and they'll get some Swayman thefts along the way, but we need to hope that the players are aware that a 6-1 win isn't the best indicator of what actually happened on Thursday night.
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