There is no doubt that one of the pleasant surprises this season in the NHL is the Boston Bruins. In Year 1 of a retool under first-year coach Marco Sturm, the Black and Gold will enter Thursday night's game at the TD Garden against the Winnipeg Jets holding onto an Eastern Conference wild-card spot.
Boston just completed a 1-0-2 road trip, collecting four out of a possible six points. They were a crossbar and a breakaway away from coming home with six points and three straight road wins, something that is very difficult to do this year. Heck, winning two in a row away from home is extremely difficult for this team.
Boston's play at home has kept them in the playoff spot, but for how much longer? The Columbus Blue Jackets and Ottawa Senators are closing and closing fast. Austin Nivision of CBS Sports released his latest NHL Power Rankings, and the Bruins' ranking continues to send a message that shouldn't be surprising to fans.
Latest CBS Sports Power Rankings says the ugly truth out loud about the Boston Bruins
The Bruins came in 15th, but ahead of them were the Blue Jackets (No. 9) and the Senators (No. 12), the two teams chasing them in the standings. That should tell you about the 2025-26 Bruins; they are not a playoff team this year, but that's OK.
"No one expected a whole lot from this team, and simply getting to the dance is quite the accomplishment. Will the Bruins make any noise once they punch their ticket? Probably not, but this was a fun season with some memorable moments,'' Nivison wrote.
It would be quite the accomplishment, but the cold, hard truth is that they are a quick first-round exit waiting to happen. That's not a bad thing either. Sure, they are in the prime of David Pastrnak and Charlie McAvoy, but they also had a golden opportunity to win it all in 2023. They swung and missed.
If the Bruins make the playoffs, then great, but if they don't, potentially having two NHL Draft Lottery picks is not the worst thing in the world. It's just a matter of how general manager Don Sweeney would go about using them.