The holiday season always gives us cause to look back and take stock of the year that was. And the calendar year of 2022 was quite eventful for your Boston Bruins, one that has produced high hopes for the spring of 2023. Here are 10 moments that mattered.
Jan. 1 – Coach Bruce Cassidy finally broke up the Brad Marchand-Patrice Bergeron-David Pastrnak line. Pastrnak is dropped down to play with Taylor Hall and Erik Haula and it creates much better scoring depth. The Bruins win 10 of their next 12 games, including a 4-3 victory over the Sabres on this day. Jake DeBrusk would eventually bump up to play with Marchand and Bergeron and find his game as a right wing. The B’s, a questionable playoff team at this point, would go on to win 51 regular season games.
March 19 – The Bruins acquired defenseman Hampus Lindholm for former first-rounder Urho Vaakanainen, John Moore, a first-round pick in 2022 and second-round picks in 2023 and 2024. Lindholm, who was a pending UFA at the time, quickly signed an eight-year deal for $6.5 million per season. With Charlie McAvoy already on board with a long-term deal, the Lindholm acquisition gives the Bruins a formidable 1-2 punch with two No. 1-caliber defensemen for the foreseeable future. A couple of injuries to Lindholm prevented him from flourishing down the stretch in 2021-22, but the move – and the contract – have looked like a steal so far in 2022-23. Much like GM Don Sweeney’s Taylor Hall deal the previous season, it was a terrific deadline trade that turned a rental piece into a major part of the team’s future.
March 21 – Jake DeBrusk remained a Bruin. One of the biggest surprises of trade deadline day was that DeBrusk not only wasn’t traded, but he re-upped for two more years at $4 million a season. DeBrusk had requested a trade in the summer of 2021 and then, after a healthy scratch in November of that year, his agent made that request public. The tough love that Cassidy had been showing DeBrusk in his young career had begun to pay consistent dividends, but it had also created a division that could not be healed. But Sweeney refused to move him for the proverbial “bag of pucks,” as many fans had hoped, and he hung on to what has proven to be a very good player at a reasonable price.
May 14 – The Bruins’ 2021-22 season came to an end. They took a Carolina Hurricane team that had dominated them in the regular season to a Game 7 despite enduring injury and illness to Lindholm and McAvoy during the series. But they fell one goal short in this late afternoon affair at PNC Arena, triggering a major change in the direction of the team. Both Sweeney and team president Cam Neely felt that the team, with the way it finished down the stretch in the regular season, left something on the table. The management tandem also felt that some of their young players had not blossomed enough under Bruce Cassidy. His unvarnished honesty was not appreciated by everyone in the room.
June 6 – The Bruins fired Cassidy. It took Sweeney three weeks to pull the trigger on the move, and for good reason. Cassidy never missed the playoffs in his six years behind the bench and he had a .672 winning percentage, took the team to within one win of a Stanley Cup and won the Jack Adams Award in his tenure. He was very good at his job, and the move was widely panned in the media and fandom. Cassidy did not have to wait long for the Vegas Golden Knights to hire him with a lucrative deal. Some questions of Sweeney’s own job security, considering he himself was approaching UFA status, would arise.
June 27 – The Bruins sign Sweeney to multi-year extension. While the deal was announced just three days before the GM’s contract was set to expire, it was not a major surprise considering Sweeney was already knee-deep in the search for the team’s next coach. Ever since the 2015 draft that saw him pass on some very good players while holding three first-round picks, Sweeney has been a lightning rod for criticism. And the lack of good young (re: cheap) talent is a salary cap concern. But he’s kept the team highly competitive while refusing to bottom out for high draft picks.
June 30 – Bruins hire Jim Montgomery as their new head coach. Montgomery had a promising coaching career knocked off its track when he was fired by the Dallas Stars for alcohol-related issues. After undergoing treatment, he worked two years as an assistant for the St. Louis Blues before landing on his feet with the Bruins. He would institute a more aggressive attacking style that has led the Bruins to the top of the NHL standings and make them a top-tier Stanley Cup contender. Meanwhile, the team defense that has made the Bruins who they are has not taken a back seat.
July 14 – The Bruins trade Erik Haula for Pavel Zacha. Haula stepped in and was a serviceable second-line center, but Zacha has provided so much for the B’s. He’s played all three forward positions with little drop-off at any of them. He wins battles and races and sees the ice well. When playing with goal-scorers, he’s proven to be a good distributor. If he can improve his faceoffs, Zacha could be part of the solution at center in the future. He would sign just a one-year extension, so the B’s need to come to a longer-term agreement. But Zacha has been a very good fit so far.
Aug. 10 – Bruins announced Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci sign one-year deals. This is the moment that the 2022-23 season had a chance to become something special. Both veterans signed incredibly team-friendly, incentive-laden deals (Bergeron has a $2.5 million cap hit for this year, Krejci a mere $1 million) that screamed “one last run.” While Bergeron was coming off another Selke Award-winning season, Krejci was returning from a year in his native Czechia. Though he’s dealt with a couple of injuries, Krejci has looked almost like his old self. With Charlie Coyle and Tomas Nosek manning the middle in the bottom six, the B’s have as good a group of centers as there is in the league. The B’s ripped off an NHL-record 14 straight home wins to start the season, spurring them to a terrific start.
Nov. 4 – Bruins signed Mitchell Miller. The club’s joyous rampage through the National Hockey League was interrupted by the decision to sign the controversial defense prospect. Two years ago, the Arizona Coyotes had rescinded their draft pick of Miller after it came to light that he was convicted of racist bullying of a classmate as a young teen. However much altruism was at play in giving Miller a second chance – and there figures to be at least some, considering the signing was something the club did not need to do – it was overwhelmed by the wave of negative reaction from a vocal section of fans as well as the victim’s family. The heat rose so high that the club chose to part ways with Miller 48 hours after the signing. Whether there are further repercussions remain to be seen. An independent investigation found no malfeasance by any Bruin employee, but the law firm which conducted the investigation made recommendations on new guidelines for the team’s player-vetting process, which the team will adopt.
