St. Patrick's Day is still a week away, but the Bruins can lock up a spot in the Stanley Cup playoffs as early as Thursday.
For a bit of perspective, the Bruins didn't clinch a spot in the tournament until April 16 last season in their 75th game of the campaign. Boston obviously has much bigger aspirations for the 2022-23 season, and the inevitable clinch is the first formal checkpoint on that path.
There's a seemingly endless number of ways to quantify this regular-season showing, a truly historic run to this point in the season. The 49-win Bruins have 20 games left to break the all-time record for wins in a season (62), and if they collect 30 of the available 40 points, they'll surpass the 1976-77 Canadiens for most in history.
Those records and a Presidents' Trophy win don't mean nearly as much if they can't finish the job, though. The B's don't need to go far back in history to find a cautionary tale. The 2019 Tampa Bay Lightning went 62-16-4, the fourth-most points in NHL history (128) and the Columbus Blue Jackets swept them in the first round of the playoffs.
"We're aware of it obviously," Bruins winger Brad Marchand told ESPN.com in a recent interview. "(Nick) Foligno was part of that series and we did see it happen when it did. It's been brought up. We don't put a lot of time or effort into that conversation. We just want to try to focus on each day. We don't really look at standings."
Marchand admitted the team is aware of the records that could fall in the next month but insisted "Nobody cares about this in this room," saying they "really don't mean anything."
He added: "If you win the Presidents' Trophy but you don't win the Cup, nobody cares. That's what we know on this team. As soon as somebody brings it up, it's in one ear and out the other. We're just focused completely on trying to get better."
Other than history, there's not much left for the Bruins to play for in the regular season. In fact, they might be better off resting players down the stretch in an attempt to be as healthy as possible entering the postseason.
That makes for a delicate balance, between trying to get right for the playoffs while playing games that just aren't that important, at least not to the Bruins. Marchand believes, though, the B's could benefit from other teams fighting down the stretch.
"It's also the time of year when teams are pushing for the playoffs and spots in the standings," Marchand tol ESPN.com. "Each game is valuable to them. It's going to push us to play some really intense playoff games and we're looking forward to that challenge."
