Bruins’ Biggest Knock Doesn’t Seem So Bad In New-Age NHL

BOSTON — The Bruins won’t enter many games this season where their opponent has less continuity on its roster.

They will Saturday, though!

The Nashville Predators will roll into Boston on Saturday night with a new look across the board. In fact, things have changed so much down south that it makes the Bruins’ offseason look tame in comparison.

Okay, maybe not.

There has been a ton made about what the Bruins lost over the summer, with Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci retiring, and Taylor Hall, Nick Foligno, Tyler Bertuzzi, Dmitry Orlov, Garnet Hathaway and Connor Clifton all joining new teams. The Preds have also made a ton of changes, though, starting up top.

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Nashville head coach Andrew Brunette and general manager Barry Trotz are entering their first season running things in Nashville. The new regime brought in plenty of fresh faces, too, with Ryan O’Reilly added with the expectation that he can jumpstart an offense that sat in the middle of the pack last season. They also went out and signed another pair of veterans in forward Gustav Nyquist and defenseman Luke Schenn

“(They look) quite a bit different,” Bruins head coach Jim Montgomery said of the Predators on Saturday. “They’re more of a fast break team, more of a transition team than they were before.

“… I think when you’re introducing it for the first time to a whole new group that haven’t played that, it takes a while before you start to play fast. But between their first game and their second game, they significantly have already improved how fast they play.”

There’s no sense in making one-for-one comparisons *checks notes* one game into the season, but there’s little doubt the Bruins’ organizational stability will give them a leg up in hopes of competing during their rebuild.

The matchup Saturday night should do a good job of displaying that, with Boston maintaining a fair amount of production from its historic season. Yes, the B’s lost a hall-of-fame lock, but they’ve got guys named Brad Marchand, David Pastrnak and the Vezina Trophy winner returning.

We think they’ll be alright.