Torey Krug made his tiny presence felt in a big way

Let’s get all the folks who are here to worry about one aspect of Torey Krug’s game out of here so we can properly talk about him, and also a deep truth regarding Torey Krug’s game at the same time. You ready? Here it goes.

Torey Krug’s continued fantastic play over the NHL at large has yet again proved that size alone cannot measure talent or heart.

There. Now that they’re all in the comments yelling and not paying attention, let’s move on to actually discussing performance.

Torey Krug has become a major impact player in all aspects for the Boston Bruin offense and defense in his now six years of being a full-time roster member, and this year was absolutely no different, as he was in the top 5 of both general scoring and top 3 in power play production. In fact, one could make the argument that he was one of three heavenly pillars of the Boston man-advantage this year with Marchand and Pastrnak; dishing out fantastic passes to create some of the best scoring opportunities the B’s could get on a frighteningly regular basis.

In fact, that playmaker role really did take Torey Krug to new impressive heights, but did cut into his goalscoring. Which is a shame, because he can still do that pretty well.

As for why his goal totals went down? Well...I think we can attribute that to a couple of things: One, the slapshot, a thing Krug likes doing, is becoming more and more of a dying breed. And it has contributed a bit to the negatives in Krug’s game.

For instance, there were more than a few times this season Krug wound up to take a big shot, only to have it blocked out in front of him and the opposing forward just rocket past him to get an odd-man rush or breakaway. Or getting mashed on the boards in trying to dig the puck out. Usually in a highlight-reel worthy way. In short, whenever Krug messed up, he messed up hard. And usually, it cost the team. Which is the nature of offense-first defenders, and many have the right to be mad about those gaffes.

Thankfully, he managed to get it together for...

In the Playoffs:

Everything I said about Torey Krug above was true. Except the good parts were even better and the bad stuff seemed to...I dunno, just be put on lockdown for the entirety of the playoffs. The dude just became a whirligig of chances, shots, and assists. The first Bruin to ever record 4 points in a Stanley Cup Final game.

And of course, for one magical moment, he got all his detractors off his back by running Rob Thomas over like a freight train after being sat on for a good twenty seconds.

It was a pity then that, even if he didn’t get on the board, I would submit one of his finest performances of the playoffs to be the one game Boston didn’t show up; period 1 of Game 7 of the Final. Because he tried, man. He really tried to get that gaggle of players who had beaten themselves before St. Louis ever did to do something. He finished the game with the most SOG of any Bruin. He played over 26 minutes. And the B’s just wouldn’t budge.

What a waste of a fantastic overall playoff performance, man. What a terrible waste.

Aggregated Grade: 8.2/10

Defensive headaches aside, there’s really no getting around the fact that Torey Krug is a presence of his own on the ice and as a member of the Boston Bruins. His year proved it, and his playoffs solidified it.

I for one am eager to see what a complete season of this version of Torey Krug looks like. He’s probably gonna break an assist record of some kind.

Fancystats and Visual:

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