The Bruins New Look

By Jayan Gandhi

The Bruins enter their centennial season with a new look. After a record-breaking regular season and a heartbreaking overtime game seven loss, the Bruins are back without some familiar faces. Long-time centers Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci retired. Additionally, the Bruins lost some key players in free agency, including Tyler Bertuzzi, Dmitry Orlov, Taylor Hall, Garnet Hathaway, and Connor Clifton. Because of all of these losses, skeptics of the team questioned if they would even make the playoffs. However, the team has gotten off to a hot start, posting an impressive 9-1-1 record to start the year. New faces have stepped up for the Bruins, and their goalies Linus Ullmark and Jeremy Swayman, who have posted save percentages of .926 and .954 respectively have carried the Bruins to some early wins. This fast start is exactly what the Bruins needed, and they now have an 88% chance of reaching the postseason, according to MoneyPuck.com. If there is one concern for the Bruins so far this season it has been their power play coming in at around the league average of 15.6% per NHL.com though this has been mitigated with the league's best penalty kill to start the season. It is a safe assumption that the Bruins will reach the playoffs again, but the question now is how far they can go. The Bruins’ fast start has DraftKings sportsbook listing the Bruins as the favorite to make it out of the Eastern Conference. However, the Bruins will need to play better than they have in the previous year come playoff time. Over the last decade, the Bruins have had a track record of underachieving in the playoffs. They have held the league's best record three times and have failed to win the Stanley Cup. The Bruins have consistently played down to their competition, losing series to teams they have a better regular season record in the last four of five years. A big part of that has been the defense core which often ranks among the league's best in the regular season only to disappoint in the playoffs. One example is Hampus Lindholm, who was top five in Norris voting last year (a regular season award for the best defenseman) but has failed to produce a single point for the Bruins in twelve career playoff games.

The 2023-2024 Bruins roster is not as talented as the 2022-2023 with a major hole at center. While Pavel Zacha, Charlie Coyle, and rookie Matthew Potrais are all solid options they lack an elite center. If Don Sweeney wants to and the opportunity presents, he should consider rolling the dice, trading one of the goalies for a top-tier center. Both goalies can’t play at the same time and it is difficult to decide which one to start come playoff time so why not trade one for the Bruins’ biggest roster hole and make it an easy decision? Even if the Bruins don’t decide to make any changes they are still in a position to make a playoff run. However, the question remains if they will be able to get over struggles come playoff time; only time will tell.