Two years ago, the Boston Bruins had a historic regular season that will be very tough to top. They set the NHL record for wins (63) and points (135). It was a magical season that nobody saw coming after an off-season that saw the Bruins fire former coach Bruce Cassidy in May and hiring Jim Montgomery in late June.
Boston's roster that season was loaded with veterans, including David Krejci and Patrice Bergeron, two iconic centers. They had seven winning streaks of seven-plus games and David Pasatrnak scored 61 goals and dished out 52 assists with a plus/minus of plus-34. Let's not forget the season that goalie Linus Ullmark had that led him to winning the Vezina Trophy. Those were just some of the eye-popping stats.
GM Don Sweeney did what he should have done, he was aggressive at the deadline and made two key trades that set up his team for success. He acquired Dmitry Orlov and Garnet Hathaway from the Washington Capitals, and then in March, he got Tyler Bertuzzi from the Detroit Red Wings. Those moves were as aggressive as Sweeney could have done. Again, it was the right move.
However, in the playoffs, after a historic regular season, they had a historic postseason exit that, again, nobody saw coming. Except for the Florida Panthers. After taking a commanding 3-1 series lead, the Black and Gold lost the final three games, Games 5 and 7 in Boston in overtime to pull off the biggest playoff comeback ever.
It was a loss that will be felt for a very long time. They were set up for a deep postseason run and they were the odds-on favorite to win the Stanley Cup. It didn't happen and they were left with an off-season and a feeling of "what if?''
Former Bruins Taylor Hall & Nick Foligno address 2023 postseason failure
Two former Bruins players that season, Taylor Hall and Nick Foligno, were traded to the Chicago Blackhawks that summer and currently are still in the Windy City. They were on a recent episode of "What Chaos" podcast with DJ Bean and Pete Blackburn and said what everyone still feels like, they missed out on a golden opportunity.
“Yeah, we (expletive) that up,” Hall said.
“Yeah, I’m so pissed,” said Foligno, now the captain of the Blackhawks. “We talked about it because the other night when we played (Dec. 4), we all got in the hallway after, because there were so many guys in our team that had played in Boston. So it was like a huge reunion and we all walked away like, ‘God, we had something (expletive) special there.’ It’s just disappointing that you don’t get it done.”
It was something special, to say the least. What makes it hurt more is that tey failed to get out of the first round of the playoffs to a team that made a run to the Stanley Cup Final, only to lose to Cassidy and the Vegas Golden Knights. Talk about adding insult to injury.
Records are meant to be broken, but good luck to any team trying to break the Bruins win and point total from that season in an 82-game regular season. Fans will remember that, but they'll remember the postseason failure more and it appears so will the players.