The Bruins' top 6 is an interesting beast. When you look at most teams, the best performers in terms of your basic advanced stats tend to be the top players. On the Rangers, for example, the forwards with the best GF and xGF percentages 5v5 are Kreider, Panarin, Zibanejad, Trocheck and Lafreniere. On the Panthers it's Barkov, Reinhart, Verhaeghe, Bennett and one relative outlier in Rodrigues. But on the Bruins the top guys in this regard are Boqvist and JvR, then proper top 6 guys in Pasta and DeBrusk. Zacha has good GF stats but the underlying numbers are less favorable. Next on the list are middle 6 - Geekie and Freddy. Whereas Coyle and Marchand are firmly in the bottom half for most of the key metrics, although none of the percentage differences are very big. Not bad numbers, just pretty 'meh'.
Which really is all what you would expect. Boston's forward group has one elite player, one legit but streaky top sixer in Jake, and an aging one in Marchand. Zacha to me is a top 6 talent, but not as a center. Which isn't to say he's bad at it, but he's not at the pointy end of that field and still learning his craft. Then you have Coyle who battles hard and has put up a genuinely impressive points tally, but despite that he's 'only' +2, 2nd last amongst all forwards on the team, and there's a reason for that. I've seen people saying he'll get Selke votes but here's a reality check - guys who are +2 and have a 45% CF on a winning team don't get many votes. He's solid, has over-performed, but he still is what he is. Beyond that it's all depth of varying quality.
The positive of that is they've done incredibly well with not a lot. The negative is our top 6 can on occasion get well and truly outplayed and overwhelmed, and this team is rarely going to win against quality opponents on sheer talent and skill alone. The middle ground is they rely on having everyone buy in and getting contributions from across the lineup, which can be effective and nice to see as a fan, plus it tends to foster good team unity and collective spirit, but it also leaves them vulnerable if their effort drops or no-one steps up to make the big plays on a particular night.
The Bruins are the bell curve team of the league - small front-end of elite talent, big chunky middle, then the bottom-end depth fades out fairly quick. How that fares in the playoffs we'll soon find out.
