32 in (roughly) 32 Season Preview: Boston Bruins

Bruins hope plethora of trades can get them past the hurdle that is round 2 of the playoffs

NOTE: This was written as of 7PM on August 27th. Any changes made to Boston’s roster made beyond that will not be taken into account. Also, I’ll clarify this now and it will go for future articles in the series as well: I will only be looking at the team in the state it was in at the end of the last season and the team in its current state. So the additions and subtractions section of the article will only include players who were on the end-of-season roster or are on the current roster.

Team: Boston Bruins

GM: Nathan Bon-Bernard

Power Ranking Placement: 18/32 in league, 3/8 in division, 8/16 in conference

Significant Additions:

Brad Marchand, C/W - 92 OV

John Carlson, D - 90 OV

David Pastrnak, C/W - 89 OV

Jordan Binnington, G - 87 OV

Mattias Ekholm, D - 85 OV

Kevin Lankinen, G - 85 OV

Josh Morrissey, D - 83 OV

Adam Larsson, D - 82 OV

Calle Jarnkrok, C/W - 82 OV

Vladislav Namestnikov, C/W - 82 OV

Evan Rodrigues, C/W - 81 OV

Matt Nieto, C/W - 80 OV

Derek Forbort, D - 78 OV

Adam Ruzicka, C/W - 77 OV

Dylan Gambrell, C/W - 77 OV

Devin Shore, C/W - 77 OV

Matt Benning, D - 77 OV

Robert Hagg, D -  77 OV

Significant Subtractions:

Kaapo Kahkonen, G - 86 OV

Mackenzie Blackwood, G - 85 OV

Alexander Wennberg, C/W - 83 OV

Lars Eller, C/W - 82 OV

Luke Glendening, C/W - 82 OV

Patric Hornqvist, C/W - 82 OV

Hampus Lindholm, D - 82 OV

Mike Matheson, D - 81 OV

Brendan Gallagher, C/W - 80 OV

Marcus Johansson, C/W - 80 OV

Curtis Lazar, C/W - 80 OV

Zach Whitecloud, D - 80 OV

Alexander Barabanov, C/W - 79 OV

Michael Frolik, C/W - 78 OV

Keith Yandle, D - 78 OV

Brendan Smith, D - 78 OV

Chris Tierney, C/W - 77 OV

Marcus Pettersson, D - 77 OV

Urho Vaakanainen, D - 77 OV

(the entire roster except for Hall and Johansen, in case you were wondering)

Offseason grade: A+

This was a very tough team to rate their offseason, although that’s mostly due to having to go through every trade and a lot of work went into this one. That being said, I think I have to give Boston an A+ based on what they started with and what they turned that into. Going from Lars Eller, Alex Wennberg and Taylor Hall as your top line to David Pastrnak, Ryan Johansen and Brad Marchand is super impressive, and they’ve made improvements to their middle 6 as well. Their best defenseman at the end of the season was Hampus Lindholm, and he now has 3 defensemen who are better in John Carlson, Mattias Ekholm, and Josh Morrissey. He also upgraded his goaltending as well. The Bruins improved in literally every area almost entirely through trades, and that is extremely impressive. It’s like those people who go to sneaker conventions or something like that and start with a shitty pair of shoes and work their way up to a 1000$ pair of Balenciaga shoes. Seriously impressive stuff. When it comes to Boston, this grade could and almost certainly will change on any given day, but for now, they have done a great job flipping what they had into something great. 

Projected Lineup: 

Marchand - Johansen - Pastrnak

Hall - Jarnkrok - Namestnikov

Nieto - Rodrigues - Ruzicka

Gambrell - Shore - Bailey

-

Carlson - Morrissey

Ekholm - Larsson

Forbort - Hagg

-

Binnington

Lankinen

Quote from the GM:

GM Nathan Bon-Bernard said the following regarding the upcoming season: “I’m looking to compete again this year. While some may question my methods, I feel as though I have improved my team over last year’s and have a roster that can challenge for the division title and hopefully hit that next step: finally getting past the 2nd round.” 

Season Expectations: Playoffs

While Boston’s status as a playoff team is in part due to the GM’s excellent job making trades, it also has a lot to do with the current state of the Atlantic division. In any other division, Boston is a competitive team that likely has to fight for their spot in the playoffs. In the Atlantic, however, Boston is pretty much guaranteed a spot in the playoffs. The only team even close to the 3rd spot in the Atlantic division is the Ottawa Senators, but I don’t think Ottawa surpasses any of the top 3 teams in the Atlantic. So, in my mind, Boston’s spot in the playoffs is pretty much cemented already. As I’ve said previously, though, this all depends on what happens to their roster. As we all know quite well, the Boston Bruins’ roster is never the same on any given day. We know that Carlson has bought a house rather than staying at the hotel and Pastrnak likely won’t be leaving anytime soon either, but no one else on the roster’s spot is guaranteed and so Boston, despite saying that they’re in the hunt for the playoffs, may decide to just say “fuck it” and blow up the roster. I don’t think that happens personally, since Boston has already traded away their draft capital for the 2023 entry draft, so the likelihood that they decide to rebuild now is extremely slim, but that’s what makes Boston so fun to watch: their unpredictability! Overall, I think they’ve done a fabulous job building their roster and should see be able to find playoff success if they keep going at the pace they’ve been going at. 

Tomorrow, we’ll be taking a look at the Buffalo Sabres. Thank you for reading, and have a wonderful day!

Previous entries:

Anaheim Ducks: https://dchl.ca/articles/senators/32-in-roughly-32-season-preview-anaheim-ducks

Arizona Coyotes: https://dchl.ca/articles/senators/32-in-roughly-32-sesaon-preview-arizona-coyotes