Dose: B's rally without Z

I’m not sure how much of it is a drive to merely produce pageviews and sell papers,* but sportswriters have a tendency to look at a trend and assign it a retrospective storyline even if one might not really be there.

It’s tempting to do just that regarding the Boston Bruins without Zdeno Chara.

They were 4-5-0 when their skyscraper-sized captain suffered the injury that still remains a surgical mystery. Since then, they've gone 6-1-0, including this current five-game winning streak.

Even though I know about the pitfalls of overvaluing small sample sizes, I feel my Sportswriter Spider Sense tingling here; of course it must be that the Bruins are banding together and pushing themselves more with the Big Z out. After all, I think, it's easy to fall into some lazy habits when you think that Chara will bail you out.

Honestly, it felt good to get that silliness out in a paragraph, because it could very well be that the Bruins are simply taking care of business when they should (and maybe finally getting some bounces).

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According to this handy site that makes it easy to compare spans of time, the Bruins were the seventh-best possession team from the beginning of the season to Chara’s injury and have been the sixth-best squad in that regard since Z went down. The samples are still so small that it’s dangerous to draw too many conclusions from any of it, but I’d say that the Bruins were better than they seemed before and might be deceiving us a bit with this current run.

Let’s take a look at their win against the Devils and Monday’s other game to see if there are any conclusions we can draw and observations we can share.

BRUINS 4, DEVILS 2

-- Seth Griffith's game-winning goal is what locals would likely term "wicked," but it's tough for me to recommend the 21-year-old. He's gone five straight games with one SOG or less. He only has four PIM all season. He's a guy to keep an eye on if you're a frequent add/dropper and he gets some play with David Krejci (whenever he's healthy) and Milan Lucic, but I'd limit it to that. At least for now.

-- Michael Cammalleri came back from his allegedly not a concussion on Monday, assisting on both of the Devils' goals. I'm not a huge fan of New Jersey’s offensive players who aren't getting heavy use, but the top line of Cammalleri - Travis Zajac - Jaromir Jagr could be one of the exceptions. Cammalleri's maybe the best of the trio because he's been firing so many SOG when healthy. At 52 percent owned, I'd snap him up.

-- Torey Krug returned to the lineup last night. Remarkable how well Boston has fared with him out, too, really.

-- Patrice Bergeron's really stepped up his offense with Krejci in and out of the lineup. He scored a goal and two assists last night, extending his point streak to four games (two goals, four assists). I especially like his trigger-happiness: 49 shots in 16 games works out to slightly more than three per contest. He's produced solid volumes of shots before in his career (243 in 80 games last year, for example), but the more merrier.

-- Cory Schneider took some blame for the Devils' struggles, and it's hard to deny it as mere selflessness. He's been rough in the last three games even though the Devils are suffocating offenses; he's faced 25 or less shots in four straight appearances (going 0-2-1). Maybe Martin Brodeur's secret skill was handling a low volume of shots?

-- Tuukka Rask is just fine with low shots, however, winning four straight games in which Boston allowed 29 or less.

HURRICANES 4, FLAMES 1

-- This was a matchup between one team that seemed a little too good to start the season (Calgary) and one that seemed excessively bad (Carolina). My guess is that neither will make the playoffs, but the Hurricanes probably need to be better than this while the Flames might just be too good for their own good.

-- That “comparing dates” game is a lot more interesting with the Hurricanes than it was with the Bruins. In October, the Hurricanes were the fifth-worst possession team in the NHL. In November, Carolina ranks fourth-best.

Context matters, of course, and so do small samples. In October, they ended the month with a five-game road trip and only played two home games. This current streak only includes two road contests (one an OT loss), two games against the hobbling Blue Jackets and generally a fairly friendly schedule.

The rest of the month should be a test. Winnipeg may or may not be a good game for them to (gasp) hit .500, but after that they run a gamut with games against the Bruins and Sharks and then a five-game road trip. They may very well flip and flop with home and away stretches for a while, really.

-- Justin Faulk had a monster game (one goal, two assists) and has some offensive talent, but he's not blowing away other Carolina blueliners in PP TOI. He might be worth grabbing - the talent seems to be there - just keep certain disclaimers in mind, especially that half of his 10 points came in the last two games.

(38 SOG in 14 games is promising, however.)

-- Jeff Skinner's looked promising lately. The injury risk is high here considering his disturbing run of concussion problems, yet he's a pretty electric offensive player when he's on.

-- Don't look now, but Alexander Semin is showing some pulse with a three-game assist streak. I'd still like to see fewer zeroes in the SOG category (three goose eggs in his last five games), though.

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* - Stop giggling.