Posted in Bruins History December 10th, 2008
Could we be witnessing the greatest Bruins season of the expansion era? A comparison of seasons past.
The incredible Bruins success so far this season has had me wondering: if things continue at this pace…especially if it culminates with a Stanley Cup victory…could this be considered the greatest Bruins season of the expansion era?
First of all, I want to stress “season” at this point and not “team”. Even if this season DOES turn out to be the greatest, it would be too soon to supplant the early 70s Hall of Fame teams of Orr, Esposito, Bucyk, Cheevers, etc. with the members of the current squad. For all we know, Kessel, Lucic, Krejci, etc. could flame out in a couple of years leaving a short, but (hopefully) powerful legacy. Granted, some may use the terms “season” and “team” interchangably, but for the sake of this argument, I’m going to keep them separate.
Second, it’s also hard to compare the early century teams, who played both fewer games and against fewer teams. Those include the 1929-30 Bruins (38-5-1) and the 1938-39 Bruins (36-10-2 & a Stanley Cup). I’m also using regular season records since it’s impossible at this point to determine 2008-09 Bruins playoff success. Therefore I won’t be using the 1969-70 Bruins as, even though they won the Stanley Cup, they only had 99 points in the regular season.
Third, it could be way too soon to be making comparisons like this. There’s a very good chance that this team starts to even out, or at least drop off some from this ludicrous level of play.
That being said, I was still curious enough to do some stat digging to find out how these Bruins compare to the Bruins I grew up with. So here’s where the Bruins stand this year in comparison to each of the five Bruins seasons in which they scored 110+ points. These are through the first 27 games of each season and, naturally, the older seasons use ties as opposed to “OT losses”.
2008-09 Bruins (final record: ? ?): 19-4-4, 42 points
1970-71 Bruins (57-14-7, 121 points): 18-5-4, 40 points
1971-72 Bruins (54-13-11, 119 points, Stanley Cup): 19-6-2, 40 points
1973-74 Bruins (52-17-9, 113 points): 20-4-3, 43 points
1975-76 Bruins (48-15-17, 113 points): 14-6-7, 35 points
1977-78 Bruins (51-18-11, 113 points): 17-5-5, 39 points
So in relation to the five best Bruins seasons of the expansion era, the ‘08-’09 Bruins are only second to the start of the ‘73-’74 team which started out 20-4-3. Some news media may dig up a faster start elsewhere along the line, but I’m limiting my research to these teams only.
In the end, it really only matters about the Stanley Cup. Still, it’s nice to know that this year ranks high among the best Bruins seasons of the expansion era…so far.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 10th, 2008 at 3:01 pm and is filed under Bruins History. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
