MY THEORY ON THE BOSTON BRUINS' SCORING WOES

Today the Bruins got shutout 4-0 at home by the Washington Capitals.  OUCH.  That brings our goal total to 3 goals in 3 games.  While that makes for a pretty good individual line, it does not work well for a team, especially when you have had 2 home games.  So, what's the deal with the lack of goals?

Unlike Thursday night when they mustered up a total of 17 shots in 3 periods, the Bruins came out shooting with 14 attempts in the first.  While none of these shots found their way into the net, the lack of goals was more of a testament to quality play by an opposing goalie and not an anemic offense.

While we are only three games into the season and have a lot of games to play, there is still a major problem with our offense.  These problems are not new as we have had trouble scoring for years.  Instead of just saying that we need to get a goal scorer, I'm going to point out some specific problems that I'm seeing.

Lucic- Yes, our left wing has a grand total of 1 shot in three games.  That's not going to cut it. 

Shot Type- Through the years I've often been frustrated with the Bruins seemingly always taking slap shots and getting very little in return.  You've seen it.  We have a powerplay and our entire plan is to feed Chara the puck for a shot from 65 feet away.  While I would definitely not want to get hit by it, I'd willingly throw on the pads and step in the net.  Yes, there's a chance I would have a nice hematoma to show for it.  However, there is also an even better chance that the powerful slap shot never gets taken and even if it does, it might not be on net.

In my opinion the Bruins need to work on both taking better shots during the course of a game and being ready to shoot.  Watching the Bruins play and looking at their shot selection, they still rely too heavily on slap shots and snap shots.  While these shots might travel a lot faster than a wrist shot they have two obvious flaws: accuracy and time needed to take.  Although experience tells me that a wrist shot is the best way to score a goal, I did a quick search and found two great articles about shot selection in the NHL and goals.  As both have incredible interactive graphics, here are their links:
NHL goal scoring dominated by wrist shots, Star analysis shows  
How the Maple Leafs scored goals, and how everyone else in the NHL scored
I just realized that the interactive graphics only work from a computer (or at least not from an iphone). Definitely worth getting in your computer for.

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