The Boston Bruins have had one of the NHL’s most dominant lines over the past two years in the trio of Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand, and David Pastrnak, a group that has put some video game type numbers on the board. Over the past two years alone the Bruins outscored teams by a 54-35 margin and attempted more than 60 percent of the total shot attempts when they were on the ice during 5-on-5 play. Individually, all three were among the league’s top-25 scorers in points-per-game this past season.
They not only carried the Bruins offense, they carried the entire team with their relentless two-way play.
Three games into the 2018-19 season and they are still dominating, and it continued on Monday in their 6-3 win over the Ottawa Senators. That game featured a hat trick from Bergeron, a three-assist game from Marchand (which follows a four assist game on Saturday), and a four-point day (two goals, two assists) from Pastrnak.
So far this season their stat lines are just as dominant as you might expect:
- Patrice Bergeron: four goals, two assists, six total points
- Brad Marchand: zero goals, seven assists, seven total points
- David Pastrnak: three goals, two assists, five total points
This through the first three games of the season this trio of players has accounted for seven of the team’s first 10 goals, after accounting for more than 36 percent of the team’s total goals a year ago. What makes that percentage even more astonishing is the fact that Bergeron and Marchand each missed more than 15 games due to injury (or in the case of Marchand, injury and/or suspension). So that percentage could have easily been even higher.
The good news for the Bruins is that line can pretty clearly carry the team in every phase of the game as they are just as dominant without the puck (which doesn’t happen often) as they are with it.
The key question for the Bruins is going to be whether they get enough consistent offense and production from the rest of the team to help take them to the next level, because as good as these three are nobody is winning a championship with just one line. I happen to think the Bruins can find enough around them because they have some really intriguing young players filling out the rest of the roster in Danton Heinen, Ryan Donato, and Jake DeBrusk, while they are also still playing without their top offensive option on the blue line in Torey Krug.
No matter what happens with the rest of the team, the line at the top is going to ensure they at least have a chance to win every single night.
MORE: Your 2018-19 NHL on NBC TV schedule
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Adam Gretz is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @AGretz.