The Boston Bruins will go into the 2024-25 season with fewer questions at center than they will have on the wing, and that is the way Stanley Cup contenders do it.
A rare exception: the greatest team of the National Hockey League’s 57-year-old, expansion era, the 1976-77 Montreal Canadiens.
At 60-8-12, it wasn’t that the head coach Scotty Bowman didn’t have options. Coming off the first of four straight Cup runs, the 1976-77 Canadiens became the only team ever to win 60 games prior to regular-season overtime. More significantly, they remain the only team to lose fewer than 10 games since the 1944-45 Canadiens lost only eight over a 50-game schedule. That is now 80 years ago.
Bookended by two series sweeps, even their six-game semifinal against the stubborn N.Y. Islanders was a 3-1 series. Only the Boston Bruins (twice – ’78 Cup final, ’79 semifinal) were able to get a best-of-seven series against late ’70s Montreal to 2-2.
These references, of course, constitute blasphemous offense to the NHL’s ivory towers. The same pontiffs who ordered all teams to retire No. 99 more recently declared the 1984-85 Edmonton Oilers the greatest team of all time.
Forget for a second that such “truths” are rightfully debated in balconies and sports bars by the game’s benefactors (the fans!) and are not the domain of the hockey industry itself, the Gretzky-era Oilers belong in at least one hypothetical conversation.
If hockey was a five-man game played on a frozen pond with two boots for goalposts, Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier, Jari Kurri, Paul Coffey and Glenn Anderson would be even more fun to watch. But whatever else championship rosters represent, they are at their core a concoction, a recipe, a stew, a team.
Top to bottom, the 1976-77 Montreal Canadiens had it all going except an opening-night answer at center.
Guy Lafleur’s left wing in that era was Steve Shutt (60 goals in 76-77), but it took Bowman two seasons to settle on Jacques Lemaire and not Peter Mahovlich as the better fit between them.
Mahovlich and Lafleur had keyed the third-period rally that completed the 1976 sweep of the Philadelphia Flyers at the Spectrum, and in ’77 it was Lemaire who tucked in the overtime Cup winner off Lafleur’s short-side feed that sent the Habs pouring off Boston Garden’s visiting bench in delirium.
As a team, the Boston Bruins congratulated their conquerors, but Gerry Cheevers and defenseman Gary Doak, victimized on Al Sims’ fateful kick of the puck to nowhere, went straight to the Zamboni gate. No handshakes, not even for Ken Dryden (as was Cheevers’ post-series custom).
Built around Dryden and the Big 3 defense of Larry Robinson, Guy Lapointe and Serge Savard, Montreal’s forward group lacked star power behind Lafleur (especially with Yvan Cournoyer sidelined by injury), but they were deep and formidable.
More often sturdy than spectacular, Lemaire and Mahovlich were both capable centers for Lafleur and Shutt; the trio should never have been dubbed “the Donut Line.”
Donut lines tend not to win the Stanley Cup, and it was never in the cards last season for a Boston Bruins team competing for the first time in 20 years without Patrice Bergeron and/or David Krejci.
As good and consistent as Charlie Coyle was in an elevated role, the 2023-24 season was an anomaly for a franchise historically based on strength down the middle so help me Harry Sinden.
Previously considered the unofficial captain of Boston’s bottom six, Coyle stood tall in a far more challenging role. He took the toughest matchups and managed to come within two goals of an even plus-minus. Without his main-stay, two-way presence, the Bruins never would have been in the hunt for the Atlantic Division, much less the Presidents Trophy.
The moving parts behind Coyle were Pavel Zacha (from left wing to center), rookie Matt Poitras (up from junior), Johnny Beecher (up from Providence), Jesper Boqvist (depth support that would become more impactful later in the season), and finally Morgan Geekie (see below).
Final regular-season stats among those originally slated for top-nine roles: Coyle 25-35-62 in 82GP; Zacha 21-38-59 in 78GP; and Poitras 5-10-15 in 33GP.
Even on a team building around its back end, 2023-24 was clearly a transitional season for the Boston Bruins.
Geekie’s postseason deployment was not unlike what Chicago Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville had done upon the return of Marian Hossa during the 2013 Cup final against the Bruins. Michal Handzus, the quintessential fourth-line journeyman plumber, centered the second line for Chicago, and the Blackhawks never looked back.
With Elias Lindholm on board and presuming roster health, Geekie will shift to one of three spots: second or third-line right wing or third-line center. Entering the second of a two-year deal signed in 2023, Geekie might initially be needed more in the middle while Poitras finds his game following a shoulder surgery that truncated his rookie campaign.
Zacha is also a possibility as the Boston Bruins continue to explore his potential at center, but Montgomery will certainly want to see him back on left wing with Lindholm and David Pastrnak.
Which brings us back to the unanswerable question as to how right wingers will line up behind Pasta.
Given the management’s investment in him as a first-round draft pick (21st overall in 2021), Fabian Lysell is at a distinct advantage in one, significant regard: While auditions at second and third-line right wing could resemble a revolving door, any other candidates such as Geekie, Trent Frederic, Max Jones or Justin Brazeau will be considered no better than their last shift. Lysell, on the other hand, must play his way out of that chance.
Lysell as a draft hit is an outcome Bruins management badly desires. Given how long it took to close the books on the consecutive (13-14-15) picks of what in Boston has somehow morphed into the Carlo/Zacha draft, it would be fun to be a fly on the wall of management’s prospect-development banter.
And to think I spent my summer wondering who would call Boston Bruins games on NESN when the real question was who would succeed Judd Sirott on flagship radio signal 98.5 The Sports Hub.
Sirott, who had developed a smooth chemistry with analyst Bob Beers over their seven years in the radio booth, takes the TV baton from the great Jack Edwards, whose own career was prematurely ended by a mysterious speech ailment that caused what seemed on the air like hesitation.
Known for Johnny Most-like emotion and unapologetic homerism, Edwards is a hockey and sports-business intellect, quick-witted but more importantly an excellent study. Off-air conversations when I’ve had the opportunity are pure gold. I wish him a glorious retirement and the banner captaincy for the Bruins’ home opener on October 12 against Montreal (or pick a playoff round).
Having been studio host for Chicago Blackhawks telecasts, Sirott understands the style change as well as any play-by-play announcer could, and he and Andy Brickley will make an excellent team in the NESN booth.
I’m pulling for 98.5 do-it-all broadcaster Ryan Johnston to get the radio gig, even if it means faking a full burial of his Philly roots. That’s what professional voices are called to do, and Johnston has proven to be a stalwart in a hockey community with high standards. He and Beers already have a head start as 98.5 colleagues on the Saturday morning hockey show and occasional games.