SOMETHING SPECIAL BRUIN
It’s Boston and everyone else as NHL set to drop puck on playoffs
NOBODY is seriously comparing these 65-12-5 Bruins with an .823 points percentage to those 1976-77, 60-8-12 Canadiens with their .825 success rate, are they?
Montreal had nine Hall of Famers in its lineup — Ken Dryden, Larry Robinson, Serge Savard, Guy Lapointe, Guy Lafleur, Jacques Lemaire, Yvan Cournoyer, Steve Shutt, Bob Gainey.
Boston probably has two in waiting. Patrice Bergeron, David Pastrnak.
But that is not quite the point, is it? For the Bruins, whose .823 points percentage came in .002 shy of the .825 modern NHL recordholding Habs of ’76-77, are not playing against history here.
They are playing against the field they lapped in a wire-to-wire takedown.
Everyone making these prognostications is searching for a reason not to go with chalk. What’s the fun in that and what’s the point of predictions if not to have some fun? This is not science.
So because it is all but impossible to find a weakness in this fortified Bruins roster, you immediately search for a historical reference.
It is not hard to find one, either, since the last, best allegedly regular-season team of all time, the 62-16-4 (.780) Lightning of 2018-19 went down in a four-game first-round meltdown of a sweep to Columbus. That, by the way, represents the only playoff series victory in the Blue Jackets’ 22-season history.
But that imposing Tampa Bay team was not built to withstand playoff bruising. It was a talent-based operation that did not have enough fiber in its foundation to adapt to tighter checking, smallspace hockey that generally marks the playoffs. The Lightning learned. Blake Coleman, Barclay Goodrow, Pat Maroon, Zach Bogosian and all that.
The Bruins do not have those flaws in their roster. They have the diversity and depth within the lineup to beat you in every which way. They beat you in open ice, they beat you down low, they beat you with pretty goals, they beat you by winning battles in dirty areas, they shut you down when they don’t have the puck. They are probably five lines deep.
Perhaps opposing coaches will be able to identify soft spots in their game in their scouting. Good luck to them. Perhaps weaknesses will develop over the course of the tournament. Things do happen. Again. These are not the 1976-77 Canadiens, who went 12-2 while marching to the second of fourstraight Cups, both losses suffered against the pre-dynasty (meaning, pre-Butch Goring) Islanders in the semifinals. The Bruins will be challenged by Matt Tkachuk, first; by Toronto or Tampa Bay looming next; according to my AI-aided brain, the winner of the Battle of the Hudson after that; and then, finally, the western champion. The season began with the immediate future of the East’s three legacy teams in doubt. Pittsburgh and Washington both fell by the wayside, making this the first tournament since 2006 that will be held without both Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin.
But Boston emerged stronger than ever under Jim Montgomery in his first year in the spot once occupied by the likes of Tom Johnson. The Bruins played so well that the organizational stench attached to the Mitchell Miller affair did not stick to the team.
Ah, Johnson, the Hall of Fame defenseman whose 1970-71 team went 57-14-7 while shattering offensive records by scoring 399 goals in 78 games, 108 more than runner-up Montreal. These were the Bobby Orr-Phil Esposito-Gerry Cheevers defending Cup champion B’s at the height of their powers and who entered the playoffs as prohibitive favorites to repeat.
Before losing in a seven-game first round to the Habs and neophyte goaltender Dryden, who’d played only six late-season NHL games. The upset was seismic and more shocking than the one that Tampa Bay suffered four years ago. Trust me. It was the most stunning upset in NHL — what’s that word, again? — history.
Things happen.
Maybe things will happen this time to derail a team that bulked up at the deadline. Maybe after a Vezina-type season, Linus Ullmark will come undone. Maybe Tkachuk will take too many pieces of flesh in the first-round matchup with the Panthers.
Maybe a coach will find a strategy to derail this team that is led — and that is the operative word — by Saint Patrice Bergeron, has 61-goal goal-scorer Pastrnak on the second line, presents a pair of No. 1 defensemen in Charlie McAvoy and Hampus Lindholm and bulked up at the deadline.
Maybe. As you have been reminded repeatedly, these are not Scotty Bowman’s Canadiens. But they are the 2022-23 Bruins. And until proven otherwise, this is the Boston Invitational.
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Let us attempt to immediately identify the pretenders, though we must provide the offi
cial disclaimer that our preseason pick to win the Cup, the Calgary Flames, did not make the playoffs.
Alex Lyon, the 30-year-old journeyman who has apparently displaced Sergei Bobrovsky as the No. 1 in nets for the Panthers, doesn’t seem to be a next-gen Dryden. Tkachuk has legitimate claim to be the Hart runner-up and could do damage all on his own but the Puddy Tats seem to be a quick out.
The Kraken have put together a deep roster of guys who can score, Seattle finishing fourth in the league scoring 3.52 goals per game. But — ack! — Martin Jones and Philipp Grubauer combined for the NHL’s 30th-ranked save percentage at .886. That does not translate into postseason success.
Connor Hellebuyck — and what would this perennial Vezina contender’s profile be if he played for an Original Six club? — gives the Jets a serious chance to win every game the way that, say, Curtis Joseph did at his peak for undermanned Edmonton teams. Could Winnipeg upset Vegas in Round 1 the way those Oilers did to the Stars in ’97 and the Avalanche in ’98? It is possible, but going farther than that is highly unlikely.
Will Kevin Fiala be at full strength for a disciplined, wellstructured Kings team that improved dramatically in goal at the deadline while swapping out two-time Cup winner Jonathan Quick for Joonas Korpisalo but seems to lack scoring power?
And will Quick, who has shown flashes of revival after landing in Vegas via Columbus, get the Game 1 call for the Golden Knights or will the assignment go to Laurent Brossoit?
The Hurricanes seemed to be just a shadow of themselves after losing Andrei Svechnikov to a season-ending knee injury in early March, going 7-9-1 until winning the final two games of the season to hold off the Devils and secure first place by one point. They’re still deep, they still come at you hard, and Rod Brind’Amour is the coach for whom just about everyone in the league would want to play, but there doesn’t seem to be enough pop in the lineup.
Yes, the Islanders are built for the playoffs, yes, they have a goaltender in Ilya Sorokin capable of stealing games at a time, and, oh yes, they should get a significant boost in every imaginable way if Mat Barzal can return and contribute. But while a first-round victory is surely realistic, the difficulty with which the team has scoring and the almost embarrassing results from the power play make it very difficult to envision more than one series victory, if that.
Three teams capable of going to the finals — and by definition would have a shot at the Cup — are going to lose first-round, two-three matchups between the Devils and Rangers, Maple Leafs and Lightning and the Stars and Wild. That’s not necessarily a function of the NHL bracket system this time, either.
Joe Pavelski is having one of the best second acts in recent memory for a Stars team that is deep, flaunts talent such as Jason Robertson and Norris contender Miro Heiskanen, and has last year’s playoff sensation Jake Oettinger in nets. Dallas may not be deep enough on the blue line to win 16 postseason games, but they are going to be a threat. If they are relying on Max Domi, though, maybe not.
The Wild seem likely to be stuck in their historical place of not quite being able to match regular-season accomplishments in the postseason. They’re thin in the middle, were 22d overall in goals per game and if Joel Eriksson-Ek is not available at full strength, Minnesota will miss him to an inordinate degree. Marc-Andre Fleury and Filip Gustavsson combined for the third-best save percentage in the league. Both netminders will surely see action.
It is never a good idea to underestimate the heart of a champion. At the same time, it is ignorant to underestimate the impact of the Lightning not having Ryan McDonagh on their back end. Andrei Vasilevskiy is the titular “Best Goalie in the World” but he did not play like it most of the year. After so much postseason brilliance, does that matter? Some of the Tampa mystique seems gone.
Maybe the ghosts of past choking situations are in the past and past only. Maybe adding Ryan O’Reilly will become the missing piece that, say, Nick Foligno and Mark Giordano were not. Maybe the Maple Leafs will get Cup-caliber goaltending from Matt Murray if he is healthy or does anyone really believe in Ilya Samsonov? If this group cannot get by at least Tampa Bay in the first round for the franchise’s first series victory since 2004, there will be no going back.
Alex Georgiev enters after compiling the third-best save percentage in the league (.930), trailing only Ullmark and Sorokin. Goaltending should not be an issue. But the defending-champion Avalanche did not come close to replacing free-agent defector Nazem Kadri. The news that Gabriel Landeskog will not be available was a tough one to absorb. Colorado has cream at the top of the lineup but there’s not the same kind of depth from a year ago.
Here’s the dream, right, that hockey’s Mike Trout will get the grand stage he and the sport deserve and make it to the final? Believe me, if Connor McDavid could play goal, then he’d be the NHL’s Ohtani. Mattias Ekholm has proven to be a significant deadline add on defense and the Oilers finally seem to have enough support in place to take the next step.
But that is if, and only if, Stuart Skinner is capable in nets after rescuing the club from Jack Campbell.
The Devils are built for speed. They come in waves off opposition mistakes. They are relentless off the rush. They push the offensive envelope every chance they get and they come with an array of elite talent headed by Jack Hughes. Timo Meier, Nico Hischier, Jesper Bratt and Dougie Hamilton. Dawson Mercer is a star hiding in plain sight. Ondrej Palat has been there before and before that. But the defense is vulnerable to down-low possession and though Vitek Vanecek had a fine year indeed, the goaltending is playoff unproven.
The playoffs will provide a referendum on roster construction for the Rangers, who have for years focused on building a team that can overwhelm with talent while, piece by piece, adding grit, if not necessarily muscle or size up front. Last year’s team could not get to the net when it came to the conference finals. The Blueshirts have the burden to prove this year’s team will be able to when push comes to shove. This is a veteran team. Other than the Kids, not a forward is younger than 28. The defense is younger, but experienced. Jacob Trouba is a physical X factor. Igor Shesterkin has turned the calendar back a year. This team should be a tough out. But that does not mean they might not be out quickly.