The 2013-14 season will go down as one of the best regular seasons in Boston Bruins history. That’s not the ultimate goal, but it’s gotta be worth something.
The B’s — with a little bit of Boston and a little bit of Providence wrapped up the regular season on Sunday in New Jersey. They did so in losing fashion, dropping an unremarkable 3-2 decision to the Devils.
Sunday’s game is one that won’t be remembered for much other than, quite possibly, Martin Brodeur’s final game as a member of the New Jersey Devils. However, the otherwise forgettable affair is just the finishing touch on the final game of a tremendous season for the Bruins.
If there’s one word that could even come close to summing up the Bruins’ 82-game test of strength that is the NHL regular season, that word has to be “consistent.” Claude Julien’s team was a model of consistency for just about the entire season. The B’s never lost more than two games in a row, and they led the Atlantic Division for just about the entire season.
Here are just a few of the noteworthy accomplishments this team was able to achieve this season.
- The Bruins won the Presidents’ Trophy for the first time since 1989-90.
- The Bruins won 54 games, which is tied for the second-most in team history.
- The Bruins’ 117 points were the third-most in team history.
- Their 31 home wins were the second-most in team history.
- Only the Los Angeles Kings allowed fewer goals than the Bruins.
- Boston finished the season with a plus-84 goal differential, which was 27 goals better than any other team. The Bruins’ third-period goal differential was plus-48, which is better than the overall differential than all but four teams.
- The B’s had an eight game home winning streak and a 15-game point streak at points during the season. They also had a club-record nine-game road winning streak and a 16-game road point streak.
- Just two teams scored more goals than the Bruins did this season. That’s despite the fact that just one Bruins player (David Krejci) is in the NHL’s top 30 in points.
- The Bruins had two 30-goal scorers (Patrice Bergeron and Jarome Iginla), five 20-goal scorers (Bergeron, Iginla, Brad Marchand, Milan Lucic and Reilly Smith), and Krejci finished with 19 goals.
- Tuukka Rask finished with a .930 save percentage and 2.04 goals against average. His backup, Chad Johnson, finished with a .925 save percentage and a 2.10 goals against average.
The harsh reality is that very little of this will be remembered if the Bruins aren’t able to make a deep playoff run when the postseason starts next week. Regular-season team stats aren’t what teams like the Bruins play for, and they would certainly be the first to admit that. But this type of consistency and dominance doesn’t happen every year and shouldn’t be taken for granted, no matter how the season ultimately ends.
