Experts predict where the Bruins will finish this season
Some think the Bruins will have a hard time winning the Atlantic Division.
Last season the Bruins fell one win short of winning their seventh Stanley Cup in team history, and the team’s first since 2011. Now, with the 2019-20 season starting Thursday night, the team looks to bounce back after being a game away from being Stanley Cup champions. See where NHL experts predicted the Bruins will finish this season.
ESPN
ESPN’s Greg Wyshynski is cautiously optimistic for the Bruins this season. He details his thoughts saying, “The window remains wide open for coach Bruce Cassidy’s club to being a title to those poor, championship-starved Boston sports fans — at least for this season. But with Patrice Bergeron (34) and David Krejci (33) a year older and more fragile, with Tuukka Rask turning 33, with Brad Marchand turning 32 this season and with Zdeno Chara … OK, he’s basically immortal, but you get the point: The Bruins have an elite core that’s getting up in years.”
CBS Sports
Many experts predicted that despite the Lighting’s historically bad playoffs, the team will bounce back and win the Atlantic for the third straight season. This includes CBS Sport’s Pete Blackburn, who predicts the Lightning will finish first. Blackburn predicted that the Bruins will finish third in the Atlantic, behind both Tampa Bay and Toronto, and says his reason why is because “they [the Bruins] relied too heavily on that top line at points last year. Boston still has a pretty glaring hole on their second line as right wing needs to be addressed. Though they’ve got a pretty flexible and versatile group of forwards, they’re going to need to turn to some young, unproven players to help fill out the lineup.”
The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe’s Matt Porter believes that the Bruins will be a third-place team, citing Tampa Bay’s strong squad as a main reason.“The Lightning return the most talented squad in the league. Stunning first-round sweep last season makes this a no-excuses year, even in a top-heavy Atlantic.”
The Athletic
Dom Luszczysyzn of The Atheltic also predicted that the Bruins will end the season in third place.Luszczysyzn specifically sites the team’s age as a factor for their third place in the division saying, “The Bruins are a little bit older than their two Atlantic Division rivals and that’s what puts them third in the pecking order. As one team’s best players move past their prime and another moves closer to it, the balance of power will begin to shift.”
Sports Illustrated
On the more optimistic side, Sports Illustrated predicted that the Bruins will finish second, behind just Tampa Bay. “The top of this division is as strong as any in the league. The bottom of this division is as bad as any in the league. There are three legit Cup contenders up top,” Sports Illustrated wrote. Watching Tampa and Boston beat up on Ottawa will be painful.”
WEEI
Even more optimistic, some experts, like WEEI’s Matt Kalman, believes the Bruins will top the Atlantic Division for the first time since 2014. Kalman also believes that the team will go on to win the Stanley Cup Finals, specifically over the Colorado Avalanche.
USA Today
Kevin Allen of USA Today predicted that the Bruins will end the season in second place. Allen also praised the team saying, “the Bruins didn’t need to do anything in the offseason. They are a deep, hard-working team and Bruce Cassidy is an underrated coach.”
