Bruins Recap - Week Ending November 15th, 2025: Rivalry renewed, and quarter season stats

Well, would you look at that.

The Boston Bruins (12-8-0) are a quarter of the way through the season and currently 1st place in the Atlantic Division, 3rd place in the Eastern Conference, and 6th overall in the NHL standings.

It's still early, but pretty much no one saw this coming - maybe outside of a few ever optimistic fans, and perhaps some within the Bruins organization.

Now much can change.

12-8-0 can quickly regress into 12-11-2 over the next five games prior to American Thanksgiving just as easily as it could improve to 15-8-2.

Fortunately, Boston is playing what appears to be sustainable hockey in terms of player effort, team structure, and special teams.

I've mentioned this on recent episodes of The Skate Podcast - there's a difference between a team who knows who they're supposed to be versus a team that knows who they are - and right now, the Bruins are a team that knows who they are.

It's been an amazing turnaround since Boston's six game regulation losing streak.

They've won 9 of their last 11 games and sit one win shy of having the most in the NHL.

Here's where Boston ranks among main team metrics league wide:

• 6th in points (24)

• 14th in points percentage (.600)

• 2nd in goals for (68)

• 27th in goals against (66)

• 14th in goal differential (+2)

• 5th in goals scored per game (3.35)

• 9th in goals against per game (3.30) - in this case the higher a ranking the worse it is

• 6th in power play percentage (25.4)

• 11th in penalty killing percentage (82.1)

There's a lot to like in those numbers but special teams jumps out to me right away as teams who are in and or around top ten in both power play and penalty killing percentage typically find themselves in the post season at years end.

The goals against to me is less concerning in this moment because the Bruins had 3 games in October where they gave up 7 goals twice and 6 goals once before they finally figured their game out defensively and turned a corner.

When it comes to goals scored however, more weight is put into that for me because they've been scoring consistently all season even during their defensive struggles.

It's surprising that this roster on paper is producing as a top five offense so far but at a certain point you are what the numbers say you are.

Here are current point paces for individual Bruins players through 20 games (featuring only players that have played in at least half of BOS games so far) :

At the end of the day, the Boston Bruins are playing some great hockey right now - they're tough, exciting and it's fun to watch.

There's perhaps no greater example than their most recent win over the Montreal Canadiens in a battle for first place in the Atlantic Division.

The Bruins and Canadiens longest head-to-head playoff drought is 12 years from 1931-1943.

Right now, their head-to-head playoff drought is 11 years and counting from 2014-2025.

For much of that time the Bruins have consistently been a top team in the NHL while the Canadiens have been a bottom team - meaning there have been a lack of games with any significant importance.

To make matters worse - for nearly 2 years, the Bruins and Canadiens never even competed - (February 12, 2020 - November 14, 2021).

The emergence of COVID-19 cancelled the remainder of the 2019-2020 regular-season - and then 2021 season was an abbreviated campaign featuring a unique, divisional realignment that had Montreal in a Canadian Division.

Simultaneously, Boston acquired competitive-hatred for other opponents that they met in multiple playoff matchups each in the Toronto Maple Leafs, Tampa Bay Lightning, Florida Panthers, and hell even the Carolina Hurricanes who they met in the post season in 2019, 2020, and 2021.

Anyways, this is a long winded way of describing why the Bruins, Canadiens rivalry has cooled off over the last decade which has been unfortunate because it's one of the best in sports and the NHL is a better league when both teams are going.

Fortunately that finally seems to be the case this year and it led to a big game feel between the Bruins and Canadiens for the first time since probably the 2016 Winter Classic.

Montreal's near decade rebuild turned a massive corner and is showing no signs of slowing down with some electric young talent in Lane Hutson, Ivan Demidov, Cole Caulfield, Nick Suzuki.

There's more to the Canadiens than just those names but they lead the way.

Combine Montreal's rise with Boston playing a great brand of hockey and it culminated in a highly anticipated matchup on Saturday night in Montreal.

Two old rivals re-igniting with first place on the line and it didn't disappoint.

Beyond the physicality, the Bruins played an all around excellent road game and were lights out on special teams.

Boston killed off all 7 of Montreals power plays - including two extended 5-on-3 situations against the leagues 11th ranked power play unit featuring tons of world class skill.

Meanwhile, the Bruins went 1-for-5 on their power play opportunities - but the one conversion by Viktor Arvidsson would prove to be the game winner.

Unfortunately, Arvidsson eventually left the game with a lower body injury and will miss some time according to head coach, Marco Sturm - how much time remains a mystery.

Same could be said for Charlie McAvoy who took a brutal slap shot to the mouth and jaw area off of Noah Dobson's stick on a Canadiens power play that shouldn't have been.

With Casey Mittelstadt, Elias Lindholm, and Jordan Harris already on the shelf for various amounts of time remaining - Arvidsson and McAvoy are added to a now compiling list of injuries for the Bruins.

Fortunately, the Providence Bruins are among the best teams in the AHL with a 12-1-0 record and have some capable players available to be called up if need be.

Still, Boston is going to have to overcome the injury bug, hope that players can return sooner than later and avoid any further incidents.

This upcoming week for the Bruins features home against Carolina on Monday, and then they hit the west coast to take on Los Angeles, Anaheim, and San Jose.