from Matt Porter of the Boston Globe,

In this space, we believe in the fickle bounces of the frozen biscuit, which is to say that anything can happen in this sport.

The Bruins could ride a rejuvenated Tuukka Rask and a duck boat’s worth of lucky goals to the Stanley Cup in 2021. Hope springs eternal. You never know.

But as team president Cam Neely acknowledged this past week, this is a gut-check offseason for the local hockey club. He knows the work of the weeks ahead, before the draft (Oct. 6 and 7) and the opening of free agency (Oct. 9), involves taking “a hard look at our roster and our organization and [seeing] where we should be going for this next year or two.”///

Offer sheets are rare as is, and the Bruins, bleeding draft picks for several seasons as they try to remain elite, would not be a candidate to use that tool on a restricted free agent such as Pierre-Luc Dubois, Anthony Mantha or Tyler Bertuzzi.

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One of the damning playoff numbers from an analytics perspective: minus-10.96, which was the Bruins' rate of expected goals against actual goals they scored at five on five. Some teams outscore their expected goals numbers. The Islanders and Lightning have. The Stars and Golden Knights have not. Of the 24 teams involved in the restart, one team scored less against expectation than the Bruins. That would be Vegas, which has created more, finished more, and gotten more saves, and has little issue getting pucks and bodies to the net.