( Photo Credit: Brian Fluharty / Imagn Images )

By: Declan Flavin | Follow me on Twitter / X @FlavinDeclan

Can’t you easily remember the general evaluation of the Boston Bruins roster before the start of this season? Perhaps you can’t, and it would make sense, because where the team stands now compared to back in October feels like a lifetime ago.

What were expectations of subpar performances capped off with barely an outside chance at a playoff appearance has completely reversed into an intriguingly solid present and future. The hope of the present is inspired by rostered forwards that all complement each other, and the immediate excitement for the future is invigorated by the prospects that will eventually (or soon) be bolstered by that same support.

Interchangeable Traits

“They have David Pastrnak and Jeremy Swayman and a whole lot of fringe fourth-line grinders.” A common preseason rebuttal like this from fans towards the optimistic few assumed that players like Tanner Jeannot and Marat Khusnutdinov had the exact same identity in the modern National Hockey League.

What the team and all fans have found out, though, is that Jeannot’s physicality can play in the pace of a modern NHL forecheck while also supporting slimmer teammates, and Khusnutdinov’s speed has been able to give a superior player like Pastrnak a higher ceiling for playmaking off successful puck battles. You can find the same mixing and matching with players like Casey Mittelstadt’s agility and vision paired with Viktor Arvidsson’s headfirst puck-pressuring; it rolls down the entire roster, from top to bottom, purely from the mix of traits that align as you go through the units.

Are past iterations of Bruins teams more skilled, dynamic, and competitive on paper? Almost certainly, but the record-setting 2022-2023 team was derailed by an opponent that was meshing styles well themselves, in a league that was desperate for another trendsetter.

General Manager Don Sweeney realized he had to follow suit midway through the 2024-2025 season, and he’s somehow executed it with this roster in just about a year or so. That doesn’t happen regularly, if at all, around the NHL, and the team is riding an organizational high that arguably started with the juggernaut trade deadline moves of a season ago.