BOSTON – The Boston Bruins are off to a wholly encouraging start to their season, and the even better news is that they can really begin to distance themselves from everybody else over the course of the next month. They have won the first two games of an extensive team-friendly stretch where they play 12 of 14 games on home ice at TD Garden and will barely leave the Commonwealth of Massachusetts until the middle of December.
They’ll also debut their “Varsity Sweater” brown third jerseys for this season during the homestand – in a Nov. 12 rivalry matchup with the Montreal Canadiens, no less -- and will wrap it up toward the end of this stretch with Patrice Bergeron’s jersey retirement ceremony at the beginning of December.
How do we feel about the Bruins Remix jerseys, which they are calling the “Varsity Sweater”? It’s the first all brown look for a Bruins jersey in over 100 years and also features a gold bucket. Not my all-time favorite but better than last year’s yellow outdoor game jerseys IMHO https://t.co/CzstOZUT9P
— Joe Haggerty (@HackswithHaggs) November 2, 2026
That is an eventful home-cooking stretch and then some for a Black and Gold group that’s already leading the Atlantic Division by three points after a 3-2 shootout win over the Vegas Golden Knights at TD Garden on Monday night. It’s also a real chance to firmly stamp their playoff spot super, super early with a dominating performance on home ice for a B’s club that’s already built a 7-1-0 record on Causeway Street this season.
“We had to clean up some things in the neutral zone and the D-zone after a few games where we hadn’t been as clean,” said Will Borgen, who leads the B’s with a plus-16 rating this season. “It’s always important to be as good at home. You get an advantage playing in front of your fans, so we’ve just got to keep it going.”
Critics can say the Bruins haven’t performed well enough against the true iron of the NHL this season, and they’d be largely correct. The Bruins are currently 2-4-1 against teams within the playoff structure as of Tuesday morning and sit with a minus-3 goal differential (15-18) in those contests.
But it’s not going to matter much until the postseason if they keep running over the also-rans while piling up points at home as they’ve done over the first five weeks of the regular season. The extended homestand will include games against solid opponents like the Panthers, Wild, Capitals, Canadiens, Avalanche and Maple Leafs where they can beef up their won-loss record against potential playoff teams this season.
“It’s huge. I don’t know if I’ve ever played as much at home as we are this month,” said Morgan Geekie. “Obviously it’s nice and you get to play in front of your fans every day, which is huge for us.
“But I think when you look at it at the start of the year you really take pride in home ice. For sure as a group that’s something we’ve done over the last few years so it’s a huge bump for us, for sure. I think it’s good to start this off on the right foot, but it’s a long month and we’ve got some good teams coming in here. So we just need to try to take points when we can get them, clean up anything that we need to and then just go from there.”
Monday night’s win was another strong indicator of how the Bruins are able to play, too, when they’re rested and able to build back to their consistent, detailed and focused style of play. The Bruins didn’t beat themselves against Vegas, saw scoring options step up with Morgan Geekie, James Hagens and David Pastrnak all putting the puck in the net, and enjoy solid puck-stopping from Jeremy Swayman as he’s been elite between the pipes all season.
PASTRNAK WINS IT FOR THE BRUINS IN THE SHOOTOUT 🍝🚨 https://t.co/0ZA3vJnwSB
— Gino Hard (@GinoHard_) November 3, 2026
That’s a tough combination to beat even against a talented Vegas team, and with a few penalties and a few defensive breakdowns mixed in there as well.
The B’s