Were the 2022-23 Bruins as good as their record?

[SnowblindNYR]

First of all, let me start off saying that I'm not a hater of that Bruins team. I was in awe of them. I recently said in a thread on the main board to prove a point about the Presidents' Trophy that I hold them in higher regard than what I deem to be one of the weaker Stanley Cup champions of recent years the 18-19 Blues despite bowing out in the first round. I will also say that this question has nothing to do with a sample size of 7 games in the first round. That said, while I'm not an expert on that roster it seemed to me that outside of a full season of Lindholm they didn't make that many changes. The biggest changes were two goalies playing out of their mind and I guess Pasta having a great season (though didn't Marchand take a step back?). Somehow that team took a quantum leap without much in terms of personnel changes and went from a wildcard team to the best regular season team of all time by record.

It reminds me of the 2011-12 Rangers who the season before only really gained Brad Richards but got career seasons from Gaborik and Lundqvist and went from a poor 7th seeded team that got embarrassed in the playoffs against the Caps in 5 to a team that had the best record in the east and lost the Presidents' Trophy by 2 points. I always thought that team REALLY overachieved. When you have the likes of Ruslan Fedotenko on your 3rd line you're not that good (I want to say that Brandon Prust was on that line too).

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[The Panther]

It's an interesting aspect of hockey that, quite often, the "best' team is not the team that wins the championship. It happens in other sports too, obviously, but it happens way more in hockey.

It's easy to explain why. In baseball, the best "team" (is baseball really a team sport? Debatable.) will win more than the worst team, almost always. Over a 7-game series, disregarding injuriy and so on, the better team will usually win. In basketball, even more so -- the best 5 or 6 guys go against the other team's best 5 or 6 guys for pretty much the whole game, so the club with the better 5 or 6 players will usually win out.

In hockey, the four or five best players on a team (i.e., the guys the entire franchise is built around) are OFF the ice for the majority of the game. Often, minor and depth players make the difference in one team beating another. So, that's odd right there.

More pertinently, in baseball and basketball (and, usually, in soccer) there aren't any unintentional scores or flukes that decide contests. When a basket in scored in the NBA, it's because the guy who shot it was trying to make a basket. There aren't accidental runs scored in baseball. But in hockey, in any given game, anywhere from 10% to 80% of the goals scored could be unintentional or flukes -- pucks off player's asses bouncing in, passes that get deflected and go in, etc.

Considering all this, it's easy to see why worse hockey teams will quite frequently beat better hockey teams. (Which isn't to say that every time a "worse" team beats a better one, it's a fluke -- sometimes the "worse" teams just outplays the better one.)

So, do I think the 2023 Bruins were as good as their record? Well, they were as good as any regular-season team has been in the Cap-era, so "yes" in that sense. But maybe "no" in the sense that they were eliminated early and, in future seasons, couldn't maintain that super pace.

(By the way, they weren't the "best regular season team of all time". It only looks that way because of the 3-point game era.)

 

[SnowblindNYR]

It's an interesting aspect of hockey that, quite often, the "best' team is not the team that wins the championship. It happens in other sports too, obviously, but it happens way more in hockey.

It's easy to explain why. In baseball, the best "team" (is baseball really a team sport? Debatable.) will win more than the worst team, almost always. Over a 7-game series, disregarding injuriy and so on, the better team will usually win. In basketball, even more so -- the best 5 or 6 guys go against the other team's best 5 or 6 guys for pretty much the whole game, so the club with the better 5 or 6 players will usually win out.

In hockey, the four or five best players on a team (i.e., the guys the entire franchise is built around) are OFF the ice for the majority of the game. Often, minor and depth players make the difference in one team beating another. So, that's odd right there.

More pertinently, in baseball and basketball (and, usually, in soccer) there aren't any unintentional scores or flukes that decide contests. When a basket in scored in the NBA, it's because the guy who shot it was trying to make a basket. There aren't accidental runs scored in baseball. But in hockey, in any given game, anywhere from 10% to 80% of the goals scored could be unintentional or flukes -- pucks off player's asses bouncing in, passes that get deflected and go in, etc.

Considering all this, it's easy to see why worse hockey teams will quite frequently beat better hockey teams. (Which isn't to say that every time a "worse" team beats a better one, it's a fluke -- sometimes the "worse" teams just outplays the better one.)

So, do I think the 2023 Bruins were as good as their record? Well, they were as good as any regular-season team has been in the Cap-era, so "yes" in that sense. But maybe "no" in the sense that they were eliminated early and, in future seasons, couldn't maintain that super pace.

(By the way, they weren't the "best regular season team of all time". It only looks that way because of the 3-point game era.)

Well I wasn't asking because they lost in the first round and I know there is a 3 point game era but they had the best record of all time. And my question is were they good enough for that record or did they just play well above their talent?

 

[DitchMarner]

My feeling was that some of the veteran players knew it was their last shot at a Championship and decided to go full throttle that season. I felt they were playing a bit too hard and that could cost them come playoff time (didn't know if some veterans would be able to handle the grind of a long playoff run after consistently playing hard all season). They were very good, yes, but I don't think they had the absolute best roster of the salary cap era. I still don't know how they recorded a 130+ point campaign.

 

[BigBadBruins7708]

As in are they the best team ever? No.
Should they have won the Cup? Yes.

They lost in the first round because of Montgomery, pure and simple. Ullmark was obviously injured in game 6 and instead of putting in Swayman he inexplicably keeps a goalie in who can't move laterally. Honestly it's a lapse on judgement that should've gotten him fired.

He also stupidly played Bergeron and Krejci in the final games of the season. Resulting in Bergeron getting a herniating a disc in the last game of the year and missing 4 games of the series. Krejci missed the final 6 games of the season with an injury and reinjured it in game 3.

 

[Moose Head]

Well I wasn't asking because they lost in the first round and I know there is a 3 point game era but they had the best record of all time. And my question is were they good enough for that record or did they just play well above their talent?

If they played by the same rules as in 1976-77 they would have finished with 123pts in 82 games. Average it out to 80 games and it’s 120pts. Still incredible in the cap era and in an era of no crappy expansion teams, but the 76-77 habs still have the best regular season of the post expansion era. What makes that 76-77 even more incredible is that they improved on their winning percentage in the playoffs and had only one easy draw, the blues in the quarters. The foot never came off the gas.

 

[SnowblindNYR]

My feeling was that some of the veteran players knew it was their last shot at a Championship and decided to go full throttle that season. I felt they were playing a bit too hard and that could cost them come playoff time (didn't know if some veterans would be able to handle the grind of a long playoff run after consistently playing hard all season). They were very good, yes, but I don't think they had the absolute best roster of the salary cap era. I still don't know how they recorded a 130+ point campaign.

What's weird to me is that I remember the Rangers handling them somewhat easily the season before. There was a black Friday game the year before that was one of the better games for the team and before or after the game (or probably both) Bruins fans were killing the team on HF and saying that they lose every time they play a good team. Then the following year the Rangers couldn't beat them at all.

 

[DitchMarner]

What's weird to me is that I remember the Rangers handling them somewhat easily the season before. There was a black Friday game the year before that was one of the better games for the team and before or after the game (or probably both) Bruins fans were killing the team on HF and saying that they lose every time they play a good team. Then the following year the Rangers couldn't beat them at all.

lol... TOR somehow swept them in 2021-2022 and then beat them early in '22-'23 but has lost every regular season game against BOS since. I agree... they didn't feel that formidable in '22.

And last season, they weren't a great possession team like they often (if not always) were during Bergeron's career. 2023 was unexpected.

 

[SnowblindNYR]

lol... TOR somehow swept them in 2021-2022 and then beat them early in '22-'23 but has lost every regular season game against BOS since. I agree... they didn't feel that formidable in '22.

And last season, they weren't a great possession like they often (if not always) were during Bergeron's career. 2023 was unexpected.

Last season was a completely different team though.

 

[Matsun]

Only the Montreal dynasty teams managed to win with 120+ PTS in the regular season. The Avs had 119 when they won which tied the non Montreal record with the 80s Oilers and 70s Boston. I think monster regular season teams often try to rack up wins and points and end up burned out and tired by the playoffs. There is a pattern where a team posts a monster regular season, gets knocked out, and then follows it up with back to back cups. The 5 strongest single seasons post lockout are:
Boston 22-23: 135 PTS
Tampa 18-19: 128 PTS
Detroit 05-06: 124 PTS
Florida 21-22: 122 PTS
Capitals 09-10: 121 PTS

All those teams lost in the playoffs in embarrassing fashion, but only the Capitals and Boston (so far) did not end up making back to back finals afterwards. Detroit 95-97 also won back to back after losing in their monster season. 90-93 Pittsburgh did it in reverse and won back to back before losing in the dominant season. Boston won in 70, lost in 71 when they had the 2nd best GD ever, then won again in 72.

 

[JianYang]

All of us put way more value in what happens from April to June.

When a team fizzles in that time period, the regular season is a distant memory, and there's the automatic assumption that the team was never as good as their record.

We can argue whether that it fair, but it's the way it is.

 

[Nogatco Rd]

In baseball, the best "team" (is baseball really a team sport? Debatable.) will win more than the worst team, almost always. Over a 7-game series, disregarding injuriy and so on, the better team will usually win.

Ironic that only a few days ago the Dodgers won the World Series thanks largely to a masterful display of teamwork and attention to detail, while the losers completely melted down due to lack of same

 

[McGarnagle]

They were one of the deepest rosters of the cap era, and they went all in on the deadline. You had Taylor Hall and Bertuzzi on the third line. It was absolutely a championship roster.

But I remember that team pulled out a lot of late wins in games they were trailing in the third, several last minute tying goals and OT wins. It's a mark of a great team that they win a few games they don't "deserve", but Boston's luck factor that regular season was probably a little bit beyond the average for a first place team.

The luck swung hard the other way in the playoffs with the team getting the flu, Bergeron and Krejci going out, and a disproportionate amount of Florida goals from the Blue line that deflected multiple times.

But the biggest reason they lost was Jim Montgomery panicking and melting down under the bright lights, putting his line combos in a blender, starting a goalie who was clearly incapacitated when you have an elite 1B sitting on the bench (then starting that backup for game 7 cold after sitting for about 2 1/2 weeks of rust), etc. And they damn near pulled that one off too with a comeback and Pastrnak putting them up late in the third only to have McAvoy deflect the tying goal and to lose in OT. If they got past Florida I think they would've had no trouble going through the east. Vegas would've been a competitive final though.

 

[bobholly39]

Not at all.

In 2018-2019, I got the sense Tampa was unstoppable. They had arguably the best offense, defense, coaching and goaltending in the league. Of course they choked big time in round 1 - before coming back with 2 cups and a 3rd final in a row. In my opinion, best team of the cap era Tampa in those years.

Boston? Boston to me seemed like a fluke all year. Like a team playing perfectly (which is great on them, very commendable), but that were nowhere near as good as their record. I didn't even have them as a top #2 cup favorite that year going into playoffs, I think I had them 4th or 5th.

Again - good on them for having such a historic season. You'll never take that away from them. But it's more of a case of a perfect storm of a season coming together, than an all-time great team.

 

[Voight]

Personally I considered them a paper tiger. Record setting season yes, but on paper I didn't think they were better than some of the other top teams.