Ten weeks into what is no longer a new NHL season, it’s pretty clear how the Bruins, if they’re going to avoid a third straight postseason scratch, are going to survive.
No surprise, they are strong in net. Somewhat surprisingly, they are stout and stingy on defense, an impressive turnaround from their struggles of 2015-16.
Their weak link, one not likely to change for their remaining 46 regular-season games, remains putting the puck in the net. They have spent the better part of three months saying that the goals are coming, just hang in there, but it has turned into a slow and sometimes torturous drip of reality that, barring a trade or a league-wide collapse of everything we know about the brick-and-mortar goaltending trade, they are short on scoring moxie and touch.
Of the two, it’s the lack of moxie that is probably the most concerning for the Black and Gold. Touch is a skill, and a vanishing one in the Generic 30, where shooters rarely see open ice and playmaking into the scoring areas is an all-but-lost art.
But moxie? That comes down first to the presence of mind to get to the front of the net, then the will to withstand the heat that comes with staying there, and yes, the skill or touch or basic grit it takes to get the puck by the goalie. Absent all that good stuff, which indeed has been absent for the Bruins these 10 weeks, it’s just going to be more of the same for a club that has scored only 83 times, or 2.31 goals per game.
As of Saturday morning, Day 1 of the league’s three-day holiday break, that 2.31 figure ranked the Bruins 25th in the NHL. Only New Jersey, Detroit, Buffalo, Arizona, and Colorado had lower averages. The common thread among those clubs: not one currently owns a playoff seed. Three of them — Arizona, Colorado, and Buffalo — soon will begin to consider whether it’s prudent to continue fighting on, or whether to sweeten their position (i.e. turtle) for the No. 1 overall pick in the June draft.
Such is what a lack of scoring can do, even now in the game’s fast-leg, dead-puck era.
“Heartbreaking’’ was how Bruins coach Claude Julien labeled his club’s inability to build upon leads Friday night, after watching his charges fritter away a rare 2-0 advantage in what became a 3-2 overtime loss to the Hurricanes. “It’s heartbreaking sometimes how hard we work and how we are not capable of extending leads.’’
Shots are not the issue. The Bruin land shots aplenty, with Friday’s 33-23 edge being among their more modest nights on the firing range. They made 51 attempts on net overall. They have had nights in the 70s, 80s, and even 90s. But without the grunt work, either to take away a goalie’s line of sight or turn loose pucks into depositable goods, the numbers don’t mean much.
“We’ve been frustrated for a while,’’ said Torey Krug, their most active-shooting blue liner, who has but one goal to show for his 106 shots that have made it to the net. “We can’t score more than two goals right now, and we know if we give up more than two it’s tough for us to win.
“We have to find the way to get that scoring touch, whether it’s confidence, that killer instinct, we have to find a way.’’
As Krug noted, it helps their cause that two forwards with some scoring touch, David Pastrnak and Frank Vatrano, made it back into the lineup the last two games. But it takes more.
“That helps us a little bit,’’ Krug said. “But it’s got to come from all four lines.’’
“It’s a bit frustrating at the moment,’’ added David Backes, the pricey offseason free agent acquisition, who has eight goals in 31 games. “Especially personally, I’d like to contribute a little more. I had a few great chances the last couple of games. I’ll certainly own that. If I bury them, maybe the game’s got a different feeling to it.’’
One of Backes’s prime missed chances came Thursday night in Florida, where he popped free at the left post and held his ground. Set up perfectly with an Austin Czarnik feed, Backes watched his shot slide under goalie James Reimer and go right through the crease. No goal.
The next night, after the Hurricanes erased the Bruins’ 2-0 lead, Backes moved to the right hash marks and just missed tipping home a long-range Brandon Carlo wrister.
“One of those ones, it’s just not going in, and again, I own that,’’ said Backes. “It’s not in the back of the net and we are still searching for those games when you’re really on it, and now I’ve got three days to think about it before I get an opportunity to go out and make good on it.’’
The Bruins are back at work Tuesday night in Columbus, where the revived Blue Jackets are doing business as the No. 1-rated team in the NHL with 50 points. The sons of John Tortorella, who crafted his reputation as a shot-blocking czar, have scored 108 times in 32 games (average: 3.38) and Friday night won their franchise-record 12th straight game.
They fire a cannon in Columbus every time the Blue Jackets score. The Bruins bring but a deafening silence.
Kevin Paul Dupont can be reached at kevin.dupont@globe.com.
