Articles in Boston Bruins

NEW YORK (Dec. 28, 2022) – The 2023 Discover NHL Winter Classic^® will include Fenway Park in its celebration of hockey’s roots outdoors when the Boston Bruins and Pittsburgh Penguins face off at Major League Baseball’s oldest operating ballpark on Monday, Jan. 2, the National Hockey League (NHL) announced today. The day’s festivities will feature the return of NHL legend Bobby Orr to Boston; appearances by former Bruins and Boston Red Sox players; performances by The Black Keys, Bell Biv DeVoe and the Boston Pops; and baseball-themed activations on the “Ice Diamond” auxiliary rink. Live television coverage will begin at 2 p.m. ET on TNT in the U.S. and on Sportsnet, CBC and TVA Sports in Canada.

from Chris Johnston of North Star Bets,

There will be an interesting dynamic among the Atlantic’s three-headed monster as the March 3 trade deadline draws closer.

The Bruins are giving off ‘Last Dance’ vibes, with Patrice Bergeron, David Krejci and David Pastrnak all playing on expiring contracts. Their window of contention may be closing and general manager Don Sweeney will want to ensure they’ve got everything needed for a shot at the Cup.

We’ve come to expect Lightning GM Julien BriseBois to aggressively pursue in-season upgrades every year, although he’s got a little less ammunition to do so after sending his first-round draft pick in both 2023 and 2024 to Chicago for forward Brandon Hagel at last year’s deadline.

“We’ve probably been looked at for the price we’ve given up for some players, but Hagel’s a top-line player for us with multiple years on his contract. You have to pay for those,” said Cooper. “If it costs you two first-round picks, it costs two first-round picks.”

The Leafs were involved in the Hagel talks as well and didn’t end up parting with that level of draft capital at last year’s deadline. It wouldn’t be surprising to see GM Kyle Dubas shift gears this year if he can find the right fit for a player with some term remaining on his deal.

A heavy price must be paid to emerge from the Group of Death – both on and off the ice.

With still more than half of the regular season remaining, it’s a little early to forecast who has the upper hand in a head-to-head-to-head scenario.

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NEW YORK (December 19, 2022) – The National Hockey League (NHL) today unveiled a preview of the planned transformation of Fenway Park in Boston for the 2023 Discover NHL Winter Classic^® outdoor game between the Boston Bruins and Pittsburgh Penguins on Monday, Jan. 2. The game, which will be broadcast live at 2 p.m. ET on TNT, Sportsnet, CBC and TVA Sports, will pay homage to the oldest major league baseball stadium and honor former and current Bruins and Boston Red Sox legends.

(Rendering Credit: NHL/Infinite Scale Design Group/Populous)

from Kevin Paul Dupont of the Boston Globe,

The Bruins entered Saturday’s matinee vs. the struggling Blue Jackets with an astounding 23-4-2 mark, best in the league this season and a pace that would deliver a record for wins (65) wins and points (136) points if maintained over 82 games. Old NHL or new NHL, the current Bruins have performed like no team we’ve seen here from the day Charles Adams opened the doors for NHL business at the Boston Arena Dec. 1, 1924.

In a city where few are happy any more unless Duck Boats come waddling and honking down Boylston St., it can be too easy to look beyond, or dismiss, such in-season accomplishments. Reminder: Embrace the moment, folks.

Those who remember the many lean seasons here before Bobby Orr’s arrival in the fall of ‘66, the idea then of a 65-win season would have been pure absurdity. Those Black-and-Gold chop shops went seven seasons (1960-67) averaging a fraction below 18 wins and 45 points. They were all 70-game seasons. Even in Orr’s rookie season of ‘66-67, Harry Sinden’s charges were 17-43-10 for an eighth consecutive playoff DNQ.

So where’s it all going with this band of Jim Montgomery’s high-flyers? See above: Embrace the moment.

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All quiet on the Bruins negotiations with star right winger David Pastrnak on a contract extension.

“They gotta pay him, right?” a respected, decades-long NHL scout said during one of the club’s recent road stops. “And the longer he waits, I suppose, his number only goes up, because of the Matthews factor.”

Auston Matthews in Feb. 2019 signed a five-year extension that pays an average $11.6 million a year. It expires after next season, prior to the star pivot’s 27th birthday. Given his profile and the gargantuan Toronto market, Matthews could be the first to land an NHL max contract of eight years at 20 percent of the CBA-certified salary cap. If so, Matthews would be looking at a number upward of $17 million year.

Is Pastrnak worth “Matthews” money? That’s one debate.

from Amalie Benjamin of NHL.com,

Ullmark was at what should have been one of the highest points of his career, coming off winning the Honken Trophy, given to the goalie of the year in Sweden, in 2013-14, a season when he had a 2.08 goals-against average and a .931 save percentage for Modo in Ornskoldsvik. He had been picked in the sixth round (No. 163) by the Sabres in the 2012 NHL Draft.

It was all lining up.

"I came off a great year, goalie of the year, a lot of expectations," Ullmark, now the Boston Bruins goalie, said this month after having become one of the leading contenders for the Vezina Trophy, awarded to the goaltender voted the best in the NHL. "Everything went [south]. That was when my roughest point was."

Because while the ice was supposed to be his refuge, a place where he could narrow and simplify his focus to the work and the game and the puck in front of him, his off-ice worries had started to creep in. Back home in Lugnvik, a tiny town about an hour southwest of Ornskoldsvik, his father's alcoholism had spiraled.

"I said, 'I don't know what to do,'" Ullmark recalled. "I have no idea what to do. I was thinking about quitting. I was very close to quitting and just moving home. But I got in touch with a psychiatrist that really helped me work through it, work through all of my feelings."

The alcoholism hadn't been a part of Ullmark's life growing up, not that he knew. His father, Jan-Olof, had always been around, helping to drive Ullmark and his brother Tobias, older by four years, to various hockey practices, after a stroke prevented the father from working. They'd always had a good relationship.

Then Tobias moved away, and health issues cropped up, and alcohol became both the solution and the problem.

And now Ullmark knew about it. Now he found vodka bottles around the house, heard the lies his father was telling. Now he worried and ached, the weight settling across his shoulders.

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from Kevin Paul Dupont of the Boston Globe,

The Bruins brought oversized offense to the NHL’s smallest rink Friday night, only to see their vulcanized onslaught (a season-high 46 shots on net) get repeatedly snuffed out by Arizona goalie Karel Vejmelka in a 4-3 loss to the Coyotes at the 5,000-seat Mullett Arena.

Setting aside Vejmekla’s stellar performance, the true showstopper of the night was an officiating crew that curiously decided not to whistle play dead with what appeared to be a blatant icing infraction in the final seconds of regulation.

With play allowed to keep rolling as the puck trickled by the side of Jeremy Swayman’s net, Coyotes forward Matias Maccelli swept in, centered out in front, and Lawson Crouse drove home the winner with but 13.5 seconds remaining on the clock.

Defenseman Derek Forbort failed to corral the loose puck behind Swayman, and Maccelli (two assists) turned the boo boo into a bonanza.

“I was shocked, honestly,” said veteran Bruins winger Nick Foligno, whose goal with 5:29 to go in regulation pulled the Bruins into a 3-3 tie. “I actually couldn’t believe it [wasn’t icing]. I was dumbfounded.”

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Below watch the game winning goal and the game highlights.

from Dan Shaughnessy of the Boston Globe,

Tuesday’s Garden victory over the Lightning makes the Bruins 13-0 at home this season. In a league that’s more than 100 years old, no NHL team has ever won its first 13 home games. The Bruins are tied with the Devils for most points in the first quarter of their season.

Most new coaches inherit bad teams. It’s relatively easy to make them look average.

This is different. This is making a good team better. And it’s rare....

“It’s a combination of the way Monty sees the game,” said Sweeney, “similar to Bruce and Claude [Julien] in maintaining defensive structure, but also, looking at a five-man attack and being involved. Communication styles are different for all coaches, and that’s part of Monty’s personality. That needed to be allowed to play out. I envisioned it, having connected with the players.”

Less than five minutes after Sweeney said those words, Taylor Hall scored in the second minute of play to give the surging Bruins another early lead. A Hall one-timer from the high slot on the power play broke a 1-1 tie in the third and delivered yet another victory.

Hall is a former NHL MVP. And he’s playing on the third line . . . behind the first line of Brad Marchand, Patrice Bergeron, and DeBrusk. And the second line of Pavel Zacha, David Pastrnak, and Krejci.

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from Kevin Paul Dupont of the Boston Globe,

What we have here, one quarter of the way into the NHL season, is a Bruins team that has drastically outperformed expectations. The question now becomes, can they keep it going for another 61 games, and then a couple of months of grueling, often torturous, Stanley Cup play?

For that answer, please see this space when the playoffs begin at the start of May, albeit with this one caveat: This is the same space that in September had the Bruins slotting in again as a No. 7-8 wild-card contender. Which is why spiked eggnog is a holiday staple in your faithful puck chronicler’s hydration care kit.

Through the first 21 games, including Friday’s 3-2 win over the Hurricanes, the Bruins have scored more than anyone, including their new bench boss, figured possible — both in terms of goals and roster depth and breadth. They also own the league’s widest positive goal differential (plus-38).

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from Larry Brooks of the New York Post,

One week later, no one in the Bruins organization has taken responsibility for the signing of Mitchell Miller. Not ownership, not management. It has all been blamed on something called “the vetting process.”

The lack of accountability, which would never stand in a Boston room that is led by Patrice Bergeron, has become the hallmark of the franchise’s hierarchy under the ownership of “Mr. Jacobs.”

But beyond that, beyond the tangle of moral issues and, most importantly, the revictimization of Isaiah Meyer-Crothers, something seems off in the timeline of the decision to grant Miller a three-year, entry-level contract that included annual signing bonuses of $95,000 a year.

According to team president Cam Neely in his Nov. 7 press conference, general manager Don Sweeney briefed deputy commissioner Bill Daly about the club’s intentions on Nov. 2. On that date, Daly told Sweeney that Miller would have to meet with commissioner Gary Bettman in order to be cleared.

Neely put it as, “From what I gather,” which would not seem to bode well for the GM, who may be in prime position as a scapegoat.

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BOSTON - Bruins President Cam Neely announced today, November 6, that the Boston Bruins will part ways with Mitchell Miller.

Statement from Bruins President Cam Neely:

"Today the Boston Bruins have decided to part ways with Mitchell Miller, effective immediately.

from Ryan S. Clark of ESPN,

Mitchell Miller, a prospect whose draft rights were relinquished after it publicly surfaced that he and a classmate were convicted of assaulting and bullying a developmentally disabled classmate, signed an entry-level contract Friday with the Boston Bruins.

The 20-year-old defenseman was a fourth-round selection of the Arizona Coyotes in 2020. Shortly after he was drafted, however, a report by the Arizona Republic detailed how Miller and another middle school classmate were convicted in juvenile court in 2016 of racially abusing and bullying Isaiah Meyer-Crothers, who is Black.

In the report, Meyer-Crothers' mother alleged that Miller started abusing her son in second grade while also using repeated racial epithets.

"When I was in eighth grade, I made an extremely poor decision and acted very immaturely," Miller said in a statement released by the Bruins on Friday. "I bullied one of my classmates. I deeply regret the incident and have apologized to the individual. Since the incident, I have come to better understand the far-reaching consequences of my actions that I failed to recognize and understand nearly seven years ago."

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As a hockey fan, it's not often I think about all those who work behind the scenes for an NHL hockey club.

from Matt Porter of the Boston Globe,

Every morning, Jeremy Swayman would walk into the workplace kitchen and engage in a playful shouting match with the guy running it.

“Beauty!” the Bruins goalie would holler.

“Beauty!” Keith Garman would holler back, a bit louder and longer.

They would escalate, back and forth, until the bit sent them toward ridiculous laughter.

“Every morning, Chef would say, ‘How we livin’?’ ” Swayman said. “And I would find a new word. ‘Swimmingly.’ Something fun. That was our thing.”

The Bruins entered the weekend as the hottest team in the NHL (8-1-0), but their mornings have been a lot less fun without their beloved chef.

On Oct. 11, the day before the Bruins’ season opener, Garman was playing in a pickup hockey game when he felt discomfort, left the ice, and collapsed. He died at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Brighton. He was 33.

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from Kevin Paul Dupont of the Boston Globe,

What if general manager Don Sweeney could swing a deal, ideally now, for the 33-year-old Kane and his $10.5 million cap hit?

Too old? Not really. The prolific Kane is actually a few months younger than Brad Marchand.

Not enough offense? Uh … Kane, whose 1,180-point output since his rookie 2007-08 season has been exceeded only by Alex Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby, rolled up 92 points last season. That was tied for No. 14 on the league list. The top-scoring Bruin, Marchand, delivered 80 points.

Too close to the end of his career? No way. The compact Kane, 5 feet 10 inches and 180 pounds, rarely misses a shift, never mind a game. He looks worthy of a four-year extension, at which point he would be 38 and perhaps ready for one of those year-to-year deals such as Patrice Bergeron, 37, and David Krejci, 36, recently signed with the Bruins.

Adding Kane as an elite right wing with David Pastrnak, to ride with Bergeron or Krejci, would make for two of the NHL’s most dynamic lines.

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