BRIGHTON -- Expectations should be sky high for the Bruins this season.
They racked up 112 points last season while qualifying for the playoffs for the second straight year, and their roster is the exact mix of hardened, proven winners and youthful talent that oft-times does special things.
Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak all scored 30 goals last season and it would be a reasonable expectation for them to do so again, whether they’re playing together or not. Gifted rookies like Jake DeBrusk, Charlie McAvoy and Danton Heinen should be even better in their second crack at the NHL. The B’s have another wave of young prospects coming in Jakob Forsbacka Karlsson and Trent Frederic. Veterans like Zdeno Chara, Tuukka Rask, Torey Krug, David Krejci and David Backes are still playing at reasonably high levels. It all blends into a strong core group.
So the Bruins should be allowed to daydream about Stanley Cup glory while running through workouts in training camp, which -- for the players who didn't take the trip to China -- gets going in earnest this weekend, right?
Well, yes and no.
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Clearly they're of playoff caliber, and they could conceivably be one of the top five teams in the NHL. But the Bruins might also end up being just third-best in the Atlantic Division, which many pundits say is the toughest in the league.
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“It’s obviously an honor to be in those conversations, and I do believe they are true that we do have the best division [in hockey],” said DeBrusk. “I might be a little biased, but I think it’s going to be a battle . . . it’s going to be points at a premium. It’s going to be tough to win the Cup either way. The teams in front of us obviously made some moves [this summer], but in saying that I thought we did as well.”
Nobody will know, of course, until the games begin, but it sure looks on paper like the Bruins are playing for third.
Tampa Bay is Tampa Bay, returning all the main components from a well-rounded roster that eliminated the B’s in five games during the second round of last spring’s Stanley Cup playoffs. There’s still an off-the-wall chance the Lightning might land Erik Karlsson out of Ottawa, which would vault them from prohibitive Atlantic Division favorites to an NHL super team as Stanley Cup favorites. Then there’s the Toronto Maple Leafs, who bagged the big fish this summer when they signed franchise center John Tavares to a massive seven-year contract. They still need an established No. 1 defenseman and are awfully young in a lot of key places, but adding Tavares to a team that pushed the Bruins to Game 7 feels like a difference-maker kind of move. Even the Florida Panthers could be poised to be a surprise team.
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But Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy thinks there's a benefit to playing in such a division.
“It’s good for us. It’s going to force us to be good and play well, and stay up on the competition,” said Bruce Cassidy. “I think Washington and Pittsburgh would probably argue that they’re the best division, with the last three Stanley Cup champions right out of the Metro Division. But I think [we're in a] great division, and the comparable with us, Toronto, Tampa and Florida is that we’re all young teams.
“I think [we've] all got good, young talent. I think we might have a better core than some of those other teams. But at the end of the day what is exciting about our division is the rivalries being created for years to come. We’ll see what happens during the season.”
That's where it’s going to play out in the end. At the moment, though, it looks like the Bruins will be challenged to finish better than third-best in their own division.