’11-12 Bruins Season in Review: Rich Peverley
Peverley/By S. Bradley
Eleven goals probably wasn’t the total the Bruins were looking for when they brought Rich Peverley back for the 2011-12 season after a successful performance during the run to the Stanley Cup the June prior, and then signed him to a three-year extension worth $3.25 million per season starting this season.
To be fair to Peverley, he was battling an unknown injury for much of the season. And then he came back from a serious knee injury in time for the playoffs. But like any player, he struggled to find his game at the most intense portion of the year.
Peverley is probably best suited to the third-line and special-teams role he’s supposed to be cast in. Injuries sometimes force him up in the lineup to mixed results. A healthy Peverley in 2012-13, however, has to produce up to his pay scale. That could include helping the Bruins turn their power play into a weapon rather than a detriment.
It’ll be interesting to see how Peverley’s stint with the Bruins unfolds, as he looks to produce enough to justify his contract and his status among the top nine, and the Bruins bring in prospects and other outside competition that might make Peverley’s talents redundant.
Stats
Regular season: 57 GP, 11-31-42, plus-20
Playoffs: 7 GP, 3-2-5, even
Contract status: Signed through 2014-15 with a cap hit of $3.25 million
Regular season recap
Highlight: Peverley got off to a hot start with two goals in the Bruins’ 4-1 win over Tampa Bay Oct. 8. Both scores came from in front of the net and were part of his five shots on net. He was plus-2. Unfortunately, he rarely got anything else done from that same area of the ice the rest of the season and only scored nine more times.
Lowlight: In Winnipeg Dec. 6, Peverley failed to record a point in 18:59 of ice time. He also lost a neutral zone draw to Bryan Little clean leading up to the Jets’ game-winning goal in a 2-1 defeat that stopped Boston’s 14-0-1 streak.
Playoff recap: In addition to lead the team in goals with three, Peverley also took the cross check from Nicklas Backstrom that earned the Washington center a one-game ban and should’ve put the Bruins in control of the series.
Grade: B-minus. The Bruins needed more finish from Peverley, especially when he had to play up in the lineup. His playoff performance salvaged his season.
Carnac predicts … Peverley settles in on the third line next to Chris Kelly and scores 15 goals next season but doesn’t quite live up to the value of the contract he signed last October. He’ll be the subject of trade talk for years despite his limited no-trade clause.
this guy has absolutely no business on the power play; he has no offensive ability. a prototypical third line player on a team full of third line players. sweet, pay him 3 and a quarter. along with krejci, this is the player i’d be most happy to see go.
He was a standout in the playoffs. Im looking forward to seeing him the lineup healthy next season. He will have a good year. Bit of a harsh assessment in my view.
Rich Peverley, pride of the ECHL.
I’d say you’re being a bit harsh on him. For someone who missed a good chunk of the season with injuries, and played most of the rest of the season despite injuries, I’d say he did pretty darn well. He was 7th in points on the team, and he missed 30% of the season. Without the injuries, he’d likely have been in the top 3. Of course you could say very much the same thing about Horton. Having both of them healthy for next season would do much good for the team, particularly on the power play.
I like Pevs and hope that he has a big year.
Maybe he’ll end up like Ference, as fans feel PC overpaid at the time but he changes our minds.
Paired with Kelly on a 3rd line is great. Lots of teams would love that kind of 2-way skill on a 3rd line.
Who plays with them? Caron?
I’m assuming Pouliot won’t be signed.
I very much agree with David.
MattK,
I’m not sure the numbers really agree with you here. He played 57 games on a 0.73 points per game pace, which means over 82 games he would have had about 15-16 goals and 44-45 assists for 59-61 points, which puts him damn near the top of our score chart. Sure, he could have scored a lot more, but he was involved enough offensively to justify not scoring 20 goals, especially given he spent a lot of time on the 3rd line. If we had a 60 point man on the 3rd unit, I’ll be pretty satisfied with that.
He also did a good enough job on the PK that I’d really not call into question his defensive capabilities. He failed in the same way as many other Bruins forwards this year, just not as much as others (Krejci, I’m looking at you).