The Boston Bruins Are Making History in the NHL

Blythe Hastings ’23

Sports Editor

The B’s are chasing history. The Boston Bruins entered the 2022-23 NHL season with modest expectations. The team amassed 107 points last season, before bowing out in the first round of the 2022 Stanley Cup Playoffs. During the summer, the Bruins fired head coach Bruce Cassidy and replaced him with Jim Montgomery. Caesars Sportsbook gave them 25-1 odds to win the Stanley Cup, and ESPN ranked them 14^th in the preseason Power Rankings. Then the season began, and the Bruins have been authoring one of the greatest regular seasons in the modern, salary cap era (since 2005-06). Through 61 games, the Bruins have skated to a 48-8-5 record, good for 101 points and an .829 points percentage. 

Wins: 48. Through 61 games, the Bruins are on pace for 65 wins by season’s end. The current record for most wins in a season (62) was set in 1995-96 by the Detroit Red Wings, who finished 62-13-7, and tied in 2018-19 with the Tampa Bay Lightning (62-16-4). Neither team won the Stanley Cup in its respective record-setting season, as the Red Wings lost to the Colorado Avalanche in the Western Conference finals, and the Lightning were swept in the first round by the Columbus Blue Jackets. 

Points: 101. The Bruins are the fastest team in NHL history to reach 100 points, getting there in 61 games, one fewer than the 1976-77 Montreal Canadiens. Boston is on pace for 136 points this season. This would put them on pace for the current record for points in a season held by the same 1976-77 Canadiens (132), who set that mark in an 80-game season. The Canadiens won the Cup that season over the Bruins.

Goal differential: +103. Goal differential is not an easily projectable stat for a number of reasons, but ESPN took the Bruins’ current differential—which is best in the league by 50 goals—and extrapolated that out to 82 games, they’d finish at +138. That’s a number that would blow by anything in the salary cap era but would not be too close to the all-time record. The 1976-77 Canadiens are atop the board at +216.