Opinion | Bruins may not be as talented as other NHL teams but coach brought out the most from supporting cast

There have been some excellent Boston Bruins teams since the league expanded from the Original Six, all centred on a Hall of Fame quality defenceman.

There was Bobby Orr and the Big, Bad Bruins of the early 1970s. Then Raymond Bourque led the way for some excellent Boston teams in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Finally, Zdeno Chara was the formidable foundation of the Bruins squad that captured the 2011 Stanley Cup.

Is it really possible this year’s Bruins are better than all of those teams?

It seems hard to believe, if only because the 2022-23 squad lacks that aforementioned blueline genius, with all due respect to Hampus Lindholm and Charlie McAvoy. In particular, the teams with No. 4 on defence, along with Phil Esposito and Johnny Bucyk up front and Gerry Cheevers in net, won two Cups and set a new standard for Boston hockey.

Jim Montgomery’s team is better than those guys?

Well, of course, we don’t know the full answer to that yet. But what we do know is that this year’s Bruins have been ridiculously good so far. Record-setting good. Better in the regular season than Orr’s teams every were.

With 135 points, Boston set a new mark for points by an NHL team this season, outdoing the 1976-77 Montreal Canadiens. They won 65 games playing in the very tough Atlantic Division. The next closest team was 22 points in the rear view mirror.

Those numbers don’t come with any asterisks. No shortened season. No COVID conditions. The Bruins led wire-to-wire, essentially, and most impressively, didn’t take their collective foot off the gas even when they were all but home and cooled out by early February.

The Bruins, needless to say, know as well as anyone that finishing first in the NHL and winning the Presidents’ Trophy means diddly squat when it comes to capturing the Cup. The current playoff scheme offers no extra rewards for finishing first than home ice advantage. The Bruins won the Presidents’ Trophy (can’t we come up with a better name for this trophy?) in the COVID obscured 2020 season, and still didn’t hoist the shiny silver milk jug when it was all over.

Only two teams in the cap era have had the best record in the regular season and then won the Cup. Why? Lots of reasons. Parity, for starters. There are usually 16 teams pretty tightly packed in terms of quality every year when the playoffs begin.

But there’s also a belief that it takes one type of team to win in the regular season and another to succeed in the post-season tournament. Injuries play a gigantic role, as do bounces and crucial officiating decisions.

So hockey history tells us regular season records don’t necessarily lead to the ultimate success. That said, these Bruins were so good this year, and so dominant, that even the most forgiving Boston fan would have to concede that anything short of winning the NHL championship this spring would be a massive disappointment given the regular season performance of their heroes.

That’s a fair bit of pressure to carry into the playoffs. Not as much pressure has having two goalies with a combined eight games of playoff experience, perhaps, but a lot.

Moreover, a peek at the Bruins roster just don’t make you think this is the best team in NHL history despite their indisputably magnificent regular season. You don’t look at this group and think, “wow, they remind me of the 2001-02 Detroit Red Wings.” It’s more likely you peruse the roster and think, “man, how did that squad put 135 points up on the board?”

That’s not to say there’s a lack of talent on the Bruins. Patrice Bergeron, we all have to concede, is the NHL’s quiet superstar. He doesn’t rock the Connor McDavid numbers, but he just does everything well. David Pastrnak is among the best scorers in the league, and Brad Marchand accomplishes as much or more as most NHL forwards despite the potty mouth and taunting.

Lindholm and McAvoy on the back end, as mentioned, are very good. Linus Ullmark and Jeremy Swayman have certainly delivered the goods this season, against all odds given their respective pedigrees. Pavel Zacha has been a much better player since being liberated from New Jersey. Taylor Hall won a Hart Trophy once upon a time. David Krejci returned from Europe as useful a player as he was before he left, and Jake Debrusk went from the trade block to being a 27-goal scorer.

But after that? That’s where it gets interesting, and why Montgomery should capture coach-of-the-year honours in a walk. Other teams might have better “talent,” but Montgomery, in his personal comeback season, squeezed more out of this supporting group than could have been imagined.

The Bruins won 65 times this season because they almost always brought more willing bodies to the competition than their opponents. There was an energy and a commitment to be stingy and difficult to play against that was truly admirable. Players like Derek Forbert, Nick Foligno, Tomas Nosek and Connor Clifton had more impact than you thought they might. Dmitry Orlov and Tyler Bertuzzi were added late and fit right in.

The Bruins had one player in the top 68 NHL scorers but still had a better regular season than the Edmonton team that had the No. 1 and No. 2 scorers in the entire NHL. How does that work? That will surely be a talking point if those two teams meet in the Cup final.

This Boston team has been regular season remarkable. That said, it will still require another gear to win it all. Florida should be no problem in the first round, but then it will be Toronto or Tampa, and after that, probably Carolina or New Jersey.

After playing harder than everyone else all season can the Bruins play harder still?

We’re about to find out.

Damien Cox is a former Star sports reporter who is a current freelance contributing columnist based in Toronto. Follow him on Twitter: @DamoSpin

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