Patrice Bergeron is one of the most decorated players in the NHL. He has won the Selke Trophy three times, has four gold medals from international competitions and won the Stanley Cup with the Bruins in 2011. Although he doesn’t have a Hart Trophy on his mantle, Bergeron has been the centerpiece of the Bruins for years and will probably continue to be key to their success this season.

Bergeron leads the Bruins with 305 points since the beginning of their Stanley Cup-winning season in 2010-11. He also leads the team with 400 games played in that time. Bergeron’s best contributions are as a two-way player, which can be difficult to quantify without advanced metrics.

Since 2010-11, Bergeron has a 58.3 score-adjusted Corsi For percentage at even strength, according to war-on-ice.com, highest in the NHL among players to play at least 300 games. This means that, adjusting for the score of the game, Bergeron’s team has significantly outshot its opponents while he is on the ice relative to other players. In other words, Bergeron’s two-way contributions make the Bruins a much better team.

Among the 359 players to play at least 300 games since 2010-11, Bergeron is one of 23 whose team created at least 10 more scoring chances than their opponents per 60 minutes while their team’s percentage of scoring chances rose by 10 percentage points or more while they were on the ice.

The Bruins’ ability to generate shots and scoring chances, while also limiting those chances for opponents, is directly influenced by Bergeron’s presence on the ice. War-on-ice’s goals above replacement metric measures the number of expected goals created and prevented by a player relative to a replacement-level player. Bergeron’s 22.5 GAR since 2010-11 ranks eight in the NHL.

Although Bergeron’s box score numbers might never put him in the discussion for the Hart Trophy, other numbers suggest he is one of the best players in the NHL and has been for a while. As they head into the Winter Classic and the second half of the season, the Bruins will continue to rely on the strengths of their top center.