The record looks a bit different than their last two seasons for the Boston Bruins, but if the season were to end today, they’d still be in the playoffs.

The 2024-25 season hasn’t hit its halfway point just yet, but it’s a good measuring stick for teams on whether they’ll be playing hockey beyond mid-April. And while Boston sits third in the Atlantic Division, there’s still much to work on in the new year.

The Bruins’ power play left much to be desired on Tuesday, going 0 for 2 in a 3-1 loss to the Washington Capitals. Down 2-1 in the second period, Boston had a crucial power-play opportunity but was unable to generate anything. The Capitals outshot the Bruins 3-0 on their second kill of the period, took away the middle of the ice, and made life difficult for their opponent.

In the month of December, the Bruins scored on just 15.4% of their power-play chances.

“We need to execute better on our entries. I think it starts there, and then when we’re in zone, we need to get tighter to the net right now,” interim coach Joe Sacco said after the game. “I think that’s part of it. Obviously we need to improve that area of the game.”

Tuesday’s loss wasn’t due to poor effort from the Bruins. They didn’t play their best game in the second period, but there were solid efforts in the opening and closing frames.

“Thought we had a really good start to the game. We came out ready to play, and we were down to 2-1, which was unfortunate, because I thought we had a good first period,” Sacco said. “Second period, I think it got away from us. Our game got away from us a little bit, but we made a strong effort in the third. Just weren’t able to capitalize.”

It’s been an interesting season for the Bruins. After a second-round exit from the 2023-24 Stanley Cup playoffs, they came into the 2024-25 campaign with lofty expectations. Even though they lost Jake DeBrusk, Danton Heinen and Matt Grzelcyk to free agency and traded goalie Linus Ullmark, they signed forward Elias Lindholm and defenseman Nikita Zadorov to long-term deals.

Things were rocky as Boston started the year 8-9-3. The team fired coach Jim Montgomery and named Sacco the interim coach. While the Bruins are above .500 now at 20-15-4, there’s still plenty of areas other than the power play that need to be improved.

“Obviously, offensive production has been tough to come by this year,” Charlie McAvoy said. “Power play has been tough. There’s been some things, but at the end of the day, like defensively, I feel as good as ever. I know that I can keep the puck out of my net, and there’s a lot of things that I can do to impact a hockey game that I’m relied on to do. And that’s what I’m taking a lot of pride in, and the rest of it, I’m trying to do the best I can. I think everybody in here is doing that.

The season is far from over and getting into the playoffs is half the battle. And while it’s been harder this season than others, McAvoy knows winning games is what’s important going into 2025.

“If we win hockey games, we’re doing our job,” he said.