The Boston Bruins are an ‘Original Six’ team with a storied history, so to achieve milestones with the organisation is a big deal.
Now obviously, we’ll likely see some youngsters achieve the milestone of making their debut as a member of the Boston Bruins and that shouldn’t be sniffed at; in fact, we remain hopeful that a Jack Studnicka, Oskar Steen or maybe even Axel Andersson make that breakthrough.
However, given that the core pieces have been with the team for so long now, there’s a group of players that can elevate themselves on the tally of most prolific in franchise history.
Whilst it’s hard to envisage Ray Bourque, Johnny Bucyk or Bobby Orr‘s records falling, Phil Esposito‘s fourth overall points total is now within catching distance of at least two current Boston Bruins players should they maintain somewhere close to their recent seasons’ performances to the end of their contracts.
To even fathom being mentioned in the same sentence as any of those bonafide Boston Bruins legends should be seen as a great honour to the present-day players. In fact, we have no doubt that the current group will eventually see more than a few of their numbers joining Bourque and Orr, among others with retired numbers in the TD Garden rafters.
Now every single player on the Boston Bruins roster is likely to hit some level of milestone; Charlie McAvoy seems set to easily put himself in the realms of 35th all-time points among defensemen, likewise guys like Jake DeBrusk, Danton Heinen and even David Backes could easily make it into the top 100 all-time points among forwards.
That’s not even touching upon the fact Bruce Cassidy will easily hit 200 games as head coach of the Boston Bruins and should, if the past few seasons indicate anything, break the 150-win barrier.
We’re going to look at five of the more significant milestones we expect to see the roster hit this coming regular season: