Who thought this could and would happen this early before the season?
By virtue of the Philadelphia Flyers 4-1 loss to the Habs and the Carolina Hurricanes 4-0 win over the Wings (though we only needed one of those results), your Boston Bruins have punched their ticket to the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Obviously, there’s a lot of perspective.
Preseason odds were not optimistic about the Black and Gold, losing Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci and not truly filling their spots.
As the season progressed, it showed more and more this team did not care about those odds, and played their butts off anyway.
Now, it’s about being better than last year. We’ve already seen Jim Montgomery calling his team out for not being playoff ready. It’s absolutely a different animal the B’s need to be better about.
There are still 8 games left this season to show what they’re made of, and to hopefully see Patrick Maroon in the lineup.
There’s still questions looming too, who’s in and out of the bottom six in general and the defense pairs, and whether the goalie rotation will continue in the postseason.
But at least for tonight, take a deep breath, and know there’s at least a little more hockey coming after April 16th.