Horton has helped the offense/By S. Bradley

It’s almost laughable that after 27 games last season, the Bruins actually thought they had a chance to win the Stanley Cup with an offense that wouldn’t have put fear in the tiniest of youth hockey teams.

With his two-goal performance last night, Milan Lucic now leads the Bruins with 15 goals and 25 points. Who was last season’s leader in those categories? Well, Patrice Bergeron had tallied 21 points 27 games, but just eight goals.

Yes, Lucic has nearly doubled Bergeron’s goal total of a season ago at this point. However, Bergeron still led the Bruins in both departments, with Marco Sturm tied with him in goals.

Lucic and Nathan Horton’s (22) current point totals would have led the Bruins at this point of last season. And four other players’ current point totals would have been good enough for second on the squad last season, as after Bergeron’s 21, three Bruins were tied for second with just 14 points. This season, after Lucic and Horton, the Bruins are getting impressive production from David Krejci (19), Mark Recchi (18), Michael Ryder (18) and Bergeron (15).

As a team, the Bruins possess a 5-on-5 goals for/goals against ratio of 1.51. That ranks them second in the NHL just behind Philadelphia. Last season, for the entire campaign, Boston was 19th with a ratio of 0.95.

So entering this season, the Bruins wanted to be a better offensive team. One third of the way through, Boston can check that off their to-do list.