Bruins old and slow? Check the stats!

[Sasha Orlov]

It's that defense and the sum being greater than the parts thing but it will happen one year, theor pipeline is very weak.

I think you are probably correct, I will continue to pray on their downfall

 

[tarheelhockey]

Oh yea, you're definitely missing something.

agree to disagree

BTW.....who's your team. As I've stated I'm a Habs fan.
My guess yours is Canucks or Leafs.

Cheers

LOL no, check my username and avatar.

Important context: I grew up as a Bruins fan during their era of 30 consecutive playoff seasons. This isn’t even my first rodeo with this specific team having this specific conversation.

Its not an argument, its an observation. The fact that Panarin and Kucherov are universally regarded as the best wingers in hockey and just had their best years in their early 30s is certainly relevant.

I would not, unless I am including Pasta himself, there isn't a single winger better than Kucherov. Who is in his early 30s. Nobody thinks Tkachuk is in that conversation, so I don't see your point.

Seems like an odd question to wonder if Pasta will be just as productive from 28-33+ as he was in his earlier years as wingers tend to age well into their early 30s, and its most likely that he will perform well for the next 5+ years rather than not. He may even have a career year ahead of him still. You suggesting otherwise came off as silly, and I think you know it.

Look man, I already gave you a full-blown statistical study shooting you down on this. I don’t know what to tell you, other than that objectively it is not nearly as common for players to have their best seasons after 30 as it is for them to be in a full blown decline by then. Even Jagr, with his superhuman longevity, was never better than in his mid/late 20s. Even Selanne, who was brilliant at 40, was nowhere near his mid/late 20s form by then. The list of exceptions to this is very, very short. That’s hockey, acknowledge it or not. Not my issue if you want to dig your heels against reality.

Maybe he is thinking about you guys all calling for the same thing in Sept 2022.....just before the Bruins slaughtered the NHL history books with the best season of all time.

But yea, call for something every year and one if these years you're bound to finally get it right.
Unless of course one is calling for the Toronto Maple Leafs to win in the play offs.

You have to admit, 2022-23 caught everyone off guard. Even people who were high on the Bruins didn’t see them running roughshod over the league like that. Sometimes everything just comes together in a way that seems like a fever dream afterward. Ullmark posting a .938? Only one guy on the President’s Trophy winner scoring more than 67 points? If anyone actually had predicted that, there would’ve been no basis for it. There are crazy seasons and then there are crazy seasons. It was fun to watch.

I do think it’s fair when looking at these average to want to see top talent be run of the mill guys put in different buckets to see how much things change. Of course you are right in everything you are saying, but Boston fans have just seen a pile of counter examples with Bergeron, Krejci, Chara and Marchand so you can understand if there is some belief, valid or not, that there is something in the water (or culture) up here that has kept guys going longer. Starts driving at how much of decline it based on physical skills or desire and effort changing with age. Obviously, it’s both, but there is more control over the latter. Maybe there is something there? Maybe it’s been luck? A little of both?

I'd like to see if it holds up in the post-season in the same way. While the sample would necessarily be smaller, have the numbers been crunched exclusively for the playoffs?

I still have the anecdotal and statistically unsupported opinion that veterans learn to keep something in the tank for the post-season.

I’d be interested in seeing the numbers crunched different ways as well, but I think the general pattern appears to hold up. Top players do of course tend to play well even into their 30s, but it’s rare that they continue to play as well as they once did.

@wintersej you’re putting your finger on something I referred to upthread, that people tend to develop magical thinking around teams that have had a run of success. It’s extremely difficult to string together back-to-back cohorts of elite players, as Detroit did in the 2000s. It only happens every once in a while, anywhere in the league. But once it happens, people have a tendency to think that organization has cracked the code somehow, and that they have some sort of magic quality that nobody else can copy. In reality it’s typically just that they stumbled into an overlooked future superstar or two while already a well-built contending team, and that’s not a replicable feat without lottery-like luck. But people will flat-out refuse to hear that logic when they’re in the heat of a winning streak.

What are you going on about?

Don’t worry about it, you’re coming in late.

 

[BadBruins]

So, you’re making the comparison to a Penguins team that missed the playoffs?

I get what you’re saying, but the reality is the Bruins are shedding talent year-over-year. Being young sounds great but unless that youth is replacing the talent level that departed, it means the team is taking a step back to reload.

To the premise of the thread, someone who said the Bruins were old at the end of last season was correct. It doesn’t make sense to come back after a bunch of 35 year olds drop off the roster over the summer and say those people were wrong. The reason the Bruins are so young right now is because they were so old 4 months ago.

I think you make some good points in this thread. Ultimately though, the narrative of being old and slow comes from the outside IMO, which often refuses to recognize that they've replaced a lot of that "talent" both internally and via trades/free agency. And continue to do so.

Even when they went to the finals in 2019, the general perception was that Zdeno Chara was still the backbone of the Bruins d-core. That torch had already been passed on to McAvoy by that point. For quite some time IMO. There was still this media driven narrative that it was their last kick at the can, mainly due to Chara's age and decline. Not that dissimilar to Bergeron and Krejci departing recently. Both still very good and effective players, but like Zdeno Chara in 2019, they weren't driving the ship anymore. Still great leadership and all that, but the torch had already been passed before that historic regular season.

 

[Bank Shot]

Well, at least you are stupid and not malicious. So here, I’ll help.

Johnny. Gaudreau.

He didn't even want to sign in Columbus, but the Flyers wouldn't offer him a contract.

Quit trying to garner sympathy by invoking a tragedy. It is embarrassing for you.