The Bruins are beating the math better than anyone, which might not be a good thing

Everyone knows that the Boston Bruins are outperforming expectations this season. Despite a disappointing loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning on Sunday night, Boston moved into the first wild card position with a loser point in the shootout. Through nearly three-quarters of the season, the Bruins are shockingly still in the playoff hunt and looking like they could steal a spot, which no one saw coming earlier in the year.

It isn't just the eye test and the game on paper that show the Bruins are outperforming expectations. The advanced numbers are also doing Boston some favors (or not, depending on how you look at it). Boston is currently first in the league in Goal Differential Above Expected, which essentially measures how good a goal differential the team has compared to where they should be.

According to JFresh's numbers, the Bruins are nearly +32 better than they should be this season. Considering the Bruins are currently +14, which puts them fourth in the conference, it's easy to see why the team went from a possible lottery entry to one of the conference's top contenders.

If the Bruins had played closer to expected, they'd be around a -18. It'd put their goal differential third-worst in the conference, ahead of only the New Jersey Devils and New York Rangers. It's showing that the Bruins are getting some great fortune this year, but it can also be a bit scary if you consider what that has meant in the past.

Are the 2025-26 Bruins similar to the 2022-23 Canucks?

This season's Bruins draw many similarities to the Vancouver Canucks from the 2022-23 season. Those Canucks had some good pieces, but most felt that it'd still take some time before the core came together and started to contend. Vancouver inexplicably wouldn't stop winning that season, and nearly made it to the Western Conference Final before losing Games 6 and 7 to the Edmonton Oilers in the second round.

The Canucks' advanced numbers showed that the team was very fortunate for where they were that season. Vancouver fans had some disappointment about the playoff exit, but also owned a renewed sense of hope for the future of their team.

The rest, as they say, is history. Less than two years later, the Canucks lost JT Miller and Quinn Hughes, have been consistently one of the league's worst teams, and don't really have a direction.

I'm not here to say that the same thing is going to happen to the Bruins. However, fans need to be wary of the team's form rapidly coming back down to earth by the end of this season or the start of next. Hopefully, the Bruins will be the ones to persevere, but it wouldn't be the first time that a team's luck balanced out in the end.