TRANSITION GAME
Change a subplot as Bruins open their 100th season
Framed by 99 years of history, including the highs of a half-dozen Stanley Cup titles and the heartache of shattered dreams too many to number, the Bruins begin anew Wednesday night with the Chicago Blackhawks in town for the start of the 2023-24 season.
Why is this Bruins season different than any other? Largely because of the centennial celebration that is about to unfold. Hastily brought to life as a sixth NHL franchise in 1924 by grocery king Charles Adams, the Bruins today are one of the league’s most storied and financially robust franchises, owned this last half-century by Jeremy Jacobs, the Buffalo-based concessions magnate.
As we’ll be reminded constantly throughout the season, the Bruins are up to their laced Spoked-B sweaters in history. They have the Cups to show for it, and they have the scars, too.
They take the ice again now, after last season setting league records for wins and points, having endured through the Great Depression, through a second World War, through the loss of Bobby Orr to free agency and, yes, through a case of diabolical math one night in Montreal when an extra man proved one too many and too painful.
Yet here they are again, ready to party like it’s the Roaring Twenties and it’s their debut at the Boston Arena. The distant sons of Art Ross, their first coach, and Jimmy Herberts, their top scorer in 1924-25, are about to chase a championship one more time.
“Everyone understands the gravity of the opportunity,” noted the owner’s progeny, executive son Charlie Jacobs, in Monday’s annual start-ofthe-season presser.
What remains an NHL constant, no matter where the sands of time fall in the hourglass, is change. Rarely in their history have the Bruins made over so much during an offseason, as will be evident in the lineup coach Jim Montgomery names for opening night.
Franchise centers Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci have gone off to retirement. Left winger Taylor Hall, one of their top performers in a historic playoff pratfall last spring, was dished to the Blackhawks as a salary-cap casualty. Key late-season adds ahead of the playoffs departed as free agents, including Dmitry Orlov (Hurricanes), Tyler Bertuzzi (Maple Leafs), and Garnet Hathaway (Flyers).
General manager Don Sweeney deftly filled some of those holes with the Dollar Store acquisitions of aged vets Milan Lucic (a Black-andGold returnee), James van Riemsdyk, and Kevin Shattenkirk. All three, with a combined history of 43 NHL seasons, could be in the lineup vs. Chicago.
Training camp, which officially wrapped up with Tuesday’s workout in Brighton, delivered a pair of delightful surprises in rookie forwards Matthew Poitras and Johnny Beecher. Like scores upon scores of Boston newbies before
them — including Orr, buzzcut and all, in 1966 — they’ll be in wide-eyed wonderment upon taking their first shifts under the bright lights on Causeway Street.
The crafty Poitras is only 19 and made the cut after only two years of junior hockey (OHL Guelph). Bergeron, like Poitras a right-shot center, came aboard after only one year in junior.
“You’re just hopeful that players are going to be ready when you need them,” noted Sweeney.
No time like the present for Poitras and Beecher. Both centers, they are slated initially to fill the Nos. 3 and 4 pivot roles. Beecher, a first-round pick in 2019, is a touch older at 22. He is also bigger than his fellow rookie (6-3 vs. 5-11), with a longer stride, faster pace, and longer reach.
There’s no telling how effective they’ll be, or even if they will remain here for the full season. For now, though, on the eve of Year 100, they represent the promise of the future, the embodiment of hope that fuels every franchise and the patrons that fill the seats.
Bruins fans for a century now have watched those kids come and go, some to soar (Milt Schmidt, Orr, Derek Sanderson, Ray Bourque, Cam Neely, Brad Marchand, David Pastrnak, Krejci, and Bergeron) others to crash (Johnathan Aitken, Lars Jonsson, Jordan Caron, Malcolm Subban).
Now, like the Gallery Gods before them, Bruins fans turn to Poitras and Beecher with hopes that they’re the next ones, the newest links in a tradition that dates back to a time when horses still plodded around the streets of the Arena and later (1928) the new building in the old West End.
Today’s Garden, all but hidden by the glitzy buildings along Causeway, is a long way from that old barn along Saint Botolph where Babe Ruth, legend has it, was known to pop in now and then when the Yanks were in town.
With a beaming smile and stars of wonderment spilling from his brown eyes, a shy and excited Poitras patiently met with a pack of reporters after his workout Monday at the Garden. Mom, dad, sister, brother, and grandparents, he said, will be in the stands come Wednesday night. Maybe others, too. Gee, he really wasn’t sure.
He is a teenager about to skate into a man’s game, so new in town he has yet to find his way to Haymarket Square or the Public Garden. As of Monday afternoon, he still didn’t know where he’ll live, what he’ll do about laundry. He freely admitted, though somewhat sheepishly, he doesn’t know how to cook.
“Soup? Can you make a can of soup?” asked one gray-haired wag in the media horde.
“I can do the stuff that has instructions on the bottom,” he said.
It’s a new season. No. 100 for the Bruins. So much for everyone to learn.
Now 2023-24 is here, and everything old is new again.