History

By: Mike Rifkin

Tuesday night, the Boston Bruins defeated the Washington Capitals 5-2 and, in the process, set a league record with 133 points in a season. They broke the record held by the Montreal Canadiens in 1976-77. The points record comes a game after the Bruins set the all-time wins record with 63 breaking the record set by the Detroit Red Wings in 1995-96 and tied by the Tampa Bay Lightning in 2018-19. The Bruins will look to do something that those two teams were unable to do, win the Stanley Cup. The Bruins’ last appearance in the Stanley Cup Finals was in 2013 when they lost to the Chicago Blackhawks in six games; they last won the Cup in 2011, defeating the Vancouver Canucks in seven games. 

Many people, myself included, wrote the Bruins off at the start of the season due to injuries, some unknowns, and improvements from other teams in the Atlantic Division. According to ESPN, the Bruins are the fourth team in NHL history to lead a division for an entire season joining the 1977-78 Canadiens, 1984-85 Oilers, and the 2008-09 Sharks. The Canadiens and the Oilers won the Cup those years. The Bruins will rake up the hardware at the NHL awards after the season, but the only hardware they care about is winning the Stanley Cup, and their journey for that begins next week.