There will be time for playoff previews and ample lead moments to break down the strengths and weaknesses for both the Boston Bruins and the Buffalo Sabres in their playoff matchup that brings up strong memories of the old-time hockey Adams Division playoffs.
But it feels like the Bruins put an impressive exclamation point on a highly successful 100-point regular season with a 4-0 takedown of a New Jersey Devils team playing out the string at TD Garden on Tuesday night. The Bruins went into the postseason on a modest two-game winning streak to claim the top Eastern Conference wild card spot, while teams like the Columbus Blue Jackets and New York Islanders finished on the outside looking in with envy and more than a hint of bitterness.
The video clip is even more intense 😲
— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) April 15, 2026
(Via @nbc4i) https://t.co/BSYDOxAFze pic.twitter.com/kQuiHOeUXj
It wasn’t perfection from Boston by any means, but it was a tremendous first step for a Bruins team emerging from the ashes of last season’s disastrous draft lottery finish, and a rousing success for first-year head coach Marco Sturm.
The importance of getting to that 100-point mark was underscored earlier this week at Monday’s team practice when the number “100 points” was written in red marker and circled on the dry-erase board inside the TD Garden home dressing room.
“Pretty amazing…I never even thought, to be honest with you, about getting 100 points [this season],” said Sturm. “Because I thought of hard it is to get that amount in this league…it’s a hard league. It just says it all. The way that we played and the way that the guys performed every day. The ups and downs we had all year long, but I said before that [the players] really took off after Christmas.
“I’m so proud of them, the whole coaching staff and the whole [Boston Bruins] staff to accomplish 100 points is incredible. I’m very happy and excited to reach that goal and share that with the great fans of Boston.”
It wasn’t just the teamwide accomplishment either, as so many individual players were recognized and able to reach milestones, or career years, with Tuesday’s shutout win as a nice exclamation point. David Pastrnak assisted on Morgan Geekie’s career-high 39th goal of the season, less than a minute into the game, and became only the third Bruins player in franchise history (Bobby Orr and Phil Esposito) to record four straight 100-point seasons in Black and Gold.
PASTA'S BEEN COOKING ALL SEASON LONG!!! 🍝
— NHL (@NHL) April 14, 2026
David Pastrnak has reached 100 points for the fourth consecutive season! pic.twitter.com/6nn6Qk4d7O
Geekie set a career-high in goals with 39 scores for No. 39, and Mark Kastelic added a pair of goals in Tuesday’s win to finish with a career-high 12 goals as a hard-nosed fixture on the B’s fourth line.
Viktor Arvidsson scored his 25th goal of the season as well and became the first player since Jarome Iginla over 10 years ago to pot 25 goals in his first campaign with the Bruins.
The story of this season for the Black and Gold, in many ways, was so many players enjoying career years, personal bests or very strong bounce-back seasons and that reflects on the environment created by the players and the coaching staff, and by the strong bond that this group forged through early doubt and a season of challenging adversity in between the little triumphs.
"I think we had multiple guys step up. It took ups and downs for characters to come out and to really shape themselves into their own. I was really impressed with everyone that had a voice in here and allowed their play to speak for themselves, allowed their commitment to recovery, to preparation to speak for themselves,” said Jeremy Swayman, who finished with a strong rebound campaign after last season’s holdout-influenced slump with a 31-18-4 record and a .908 save percentage. “And when you got guys that are all pulling the same rope without talking about it, that's a pretty important culture. So I was able to sit back and watch that form naturally and organically, and that's when there was a turning point for all of us to really hone in on what we have in this locker room."
Fraser Minten winning the Bruins 7th Player Award was another one of those moments as the 21-year-old finished off an impressive rookie campaign as a two-way center that showed a great deal of upside, and enough polish to his 200-foot game that he centered Pastrnak for long stretches in the second half of the season.
Fraser Minten wins the fan vote for the 7th Player Award pic.twitter.com/bbi1kDfH3R
— Bridgette Proulx (@bridgetteproulx) April 14, 2026
“He was one of the guys we actually talked about putting in the minors to start with before training camp, and look at him now,” said Sturm. “He went from that to playing with David Pastrnak. It’s hard to do. That’s why he’s a special player...I’m happy that he got the [7th Player] award today. He’s a great kid, he wants to get better every day and he’s already a leader.”
It wasn’t all positives, of course, as both Casey Mittelstadt and Pavel Zacha were forced to exit the game early for family reasons, but Sturm assured there was no injury reasoning behind the absences and that they'd be ready for Game 1 of the playoffs. And the Bruins never got to give 19-year-old James Hagens any power play repetitions in the two late season games he played with the Black and Gold even as he impressed with his board-work, his playmaking and the sheer speed/skill level he could potentially bring to the lineup if his number gets called in the postseason.
Stunt on them James, stunt on them pic.twitter.com/BOgcjDYdFD
— Spoked Z (@SpokedZ) April 15, 2026
Still, the B’s were able to get his first home game at TD Garden under his belt prior to the Stanley Cup playoffs and leave him feeling confident when he gets his shot over the next few weeks.
"It's definitely different when you're wearing the Bruins jersey. The fans are amazing, how loud they get out there. It's something that I've never seen before, so that's really cool,” said Hagens. “It's just something that you have to be in the moment for when you're out there, but you have to be ready to go out there, start of the puck drop."
Tuesday night’s win felt like a celebratory final skate lap for a B’s regular season where they accomplished a great deal and executed a perfect pivot away from last year’s forgettable efforts on the ice. Now comes the Stanley Cup playoffs for the B’s and a whole new game for a Bruins team that took an awfully big step in their efforts to reload and rebuild a formerly faltering roster.