The Boston Bruins have a roster of players that have been through it all with the team, with countless names that will no doubt hang in the TD Garden rafters one day.
Being an ‘Original Six’ team, the Boston Bruins have a richer history than most when it comes to retiring numbers. You only need look to the rafters to realise that you’re in esteemed company if your number is raised up there.
Currently hanging in the rafters at TD Garden are the numbers of Eddie Shore, Lionel Hitchman, Bobby Orr, Dit Clapper, Phil Esposito, Cam Neely, Johhny Bucyk, Milt Schmidt, Rick Middleton, Terry O’Reilly and Ray Bourque.
Looking to that list, any current roster player for the Boston Bruins has a lot to live up to if they one day want to see their number raised up.
However, with that said, there’s at least two players we should expect to see it happening for; if the Boston Bruins manage to win a second Stanley Cup with this core group of players, you could quite reasonably expand that number too.
It’s really hard to judge though in terms of what a player needs to do to earn the ultimate honor, especially in the modern game.
After all, jersey numbers are only two digits maximum and if every player that did something special had their number retired, we’d soon run out.
We’re talking the best of the best here. On the current Boston Bruins roster, that trims it down but there’s still plenty of options. We’re going to start with the most likely of the bunch: