WILMINGTON – Torey Krug was incredibly consistent in his first two NHL seasons with the Boston Bruins.
The 24-year-old averaged 13 goals and 40 points in those two seasons, and carved out a reputation as an explosive, productive offensive defenseman capable of doing major damage on the power play. This season Krug’s minutes are up as he’s playing a consistent top-4 defenseman role for the Black and Gold for the first time in his career, but his goals are down with just three scores in 45 games played this season.
Krug’s career shooting percentage of 5.6 percent has dropped all the way to 2.3 percent this season, so the talented D-man has only converted on three of his 130 shots on net this season. It’s something Krug is keenly aware of while still on pace for his normal 40 points this season for the Black and Gold, but not something he’s terribly concerned about at this point.
“I don’t worry about it because I’m still getting chances, and I’m still helping to get goals for other guys,” said Krug, who is second on the Bruins behind only Patrice Bergeron with 130 shots on net this season. “If I didn’t help produce more goals for my team then it would probably be a little higher stress. If I do score a few more goals hopefully it will correlate into more wins for our team, but right now I haven’t once worried about or thought about it too hard.
“It’s definitely not a confidence issue. Obviously I’m one of the more confident players on the team, and I’m still creating things for other players on the team. I think I probably have more chances this year than I have in the past. It’s been a good challenge for me to elevate my game to a higher level playing against better players, and still trying to get chances. It will go in…I’m not too worried about it. Points are so crucial in the second half of the year, so maybe I’ll pop a few more in.”
That being said a few more goals on the ledger would always look better for a player like Krug that’s on a contract ready to expire at the end of this season.
Claude Julien had a few simple words of advice for Krug a little earlier in the season: simply try to hit the net a little more often with his shots rather than attempting to pick corners on so many of his prime scoring chances. It was good advice the D-man took to heart, and it could very easily portend a surge in the second half of the season. Clearly the shooting percentage stat would tell everybody that things will even out for Krug over the final three plus months this season.
“It’s not what he’s doing on defense, but more yeah the offensive part of his role. I think you know there are some things, you know, where he’s missed the net quite a bit. He’s shot over the net. We’ve had a talk about that, and how he needs to hit the net a little bit more,” said Julien, who mentioned in the same breath that he had zero issues whatsoever with what Krug was bringing to the table this season. "There’s no doubt when you’re used to scoring more than that he’s probably forcing things a little bit.
“Some years everything goes in and some years nothing wants to go in.
“For Torey [Krug] I just think he has to focus on his job and do it right and let things fall into place, you know? If those pucks are going to go in, they’re going to go in. But they’re only going to go in if you hit the net. I think that’s just one area that I think he could be better at is making sure even if you don’t score, you hit the net. There’s a chance for a rebound, a chance for it hitting something, loose pucks or anything, but when you miss the net you get nothing out of it. So that’s probably the main thing I would say about Torey but that’s not why he’s only had three goals. That’s an area where he could help himself.”
Krug certainly sounds poised and ready to help himself, and push that goal total back up for a well-rounded, feisty defensemen that could really continue helping Boston’s offensive cause in the second half of the season.