Bruins and Golden Knights' Elite Defense Separates Them from the Rest of the NHL
The Vegas Golden Knights and Boston Bruins continue to draw attention early in the new NHL season. Adam Proteau explains why their dominant defense made their success possible.
There’s a reason why NHL coaches constantly harp on their team’s defensive efforts: in the regular season and especially in the playoffs, minimizing your team’s mistakes is what ultimately earns you a Stanley Cup.
Early on this season, we’re seeing defensive prowess putting recent Cup champions and Presidents’ Trophy winners back at the top of their respective divisions.
We’re speaking, of course, of the once-again-dominant Boston Bruins and last season’s Cup-champion Vegas Golden Knights. The Bruins have risen to the top of the Atlantic Division and the Eastern Conference with an 8-0-1 record, while Vegas is the NHL’s top team with a 9-0-1 mark. And though they’ve both got potent offenses, it’s their overall team defense that’s separating them from the rest of the league.
Indeed, in Boston, the B's have allowed just 14 goals this season, putting them at the top of the NHL with a 1.56 goals-against average. And in Las Vegas, the Golden Knights sit third overall with a 2.20 team GAA.
Neither team is in the top five on offense, as Vegas sits ninth overall at 3.50 goals-for per game, and the Bruins currently sit tied for 14th at 3.22 goals-for per game. Neither team is hurting for offense, but it’s telling that Boston and the Golden Knights are quite adept at keeping their opponent from scoring.
The same was true of both teams last season. The Bruins rose to the top of the game in the regular season by allowing a league-low 2.12 goals against per game. And in the post-season, Vegas was fourth overall with a 2.59 GAA.
Boston’s defense fell apart in the playoffs, as it gave up a whopping 3.71 goals per game – only three playoff teams were worse – and its offense failed to bail them out, even at a solid 3.86 goals-for per game. Vegas had the best playoff offense at an even four goals per game, but if you asked Golden Knights coach Bruce Cassidy, he’d almost assuredly tell you it’s much easier to teach defense than it is to teach offense.
As we’ve said in prior articles, the teams that thrive when the games matter most are those that almost coach themselves during games. The job of every NHL coach is to draw up a defense plan that resonates with every player on the team, but at some point, the team has to show it understands and can take that game plan and make it second nature.
This is why familiarity is such a good thing for teams. When you have a group that’s aware of every member’s strengths and weaknesses, it’s much easier to build trust and understanding right out of the gate. After that, it’s mainly about staying healthy and peaking at the right time of the year. It’s a delicate balance, but these are the things that keep NHL GMs awake at night.
Most teams don’t have an abundance of depth, and that may come back to bite Boston after its exodus of veteran talent last summer. But for now, the Bruins have a group of players who still remember what it was like to steamroll the rest of the league last year, and they’re showing they’ve still got the magic touch. The same goes for Vegas, a team that didn’t make a big splash at all in the off-season but can rely on itself to methodically dominate its opponents.
It’s a long grind of a season, but the Bruins and Golden Knights have given themselves a comfortable cushion in the standings with their impressive defensive acumen. Neither of their rosters is the same as it was in the 2022-23 campaign, but given how well they keep the puck out of their net, they don’t need a single particular player to be in the lineup. All they need is to remember what it took to give themselves the best shot at winning, and that still means a near-airtight defense.
