Welp. Bridge season largely a success imo; made the playoffs, didn’t lose to Toronto, brought along a handful of younger players, and had some pretty exciting moments.
Definitely some changes coming, curious to see where things go. But I’m thinking the next few years should be a lot of fun.
a bridge to what, exactly? The younger players on the roster are largely low ceiling guys (Lohrei and maybe Poitras as exceptions but neither strike me as future elite contributors). The prospect pool is among the worst in the league and, again, devoid of guys with high ceilings. A lack of draft picks doesn’t help either. Marchand is probably going to enter a decline phase soon if he’s not already there.
I get that this year’s roster was cobbled together because of cap issues and they overachieved in a lot of ways but I don’t think the future is especially rosy. They have a very good but small nucleus (assuming Swayman is retained and maintains his level of play). The problem is there isn’t an obvious path to building out the rest of the roster in a manner which will make them an elite team.
Barring something unexpected, it feels like this was a bridge to a period where they will be pretty good but never great. Good enough to not have the high draft picks needed to try to land elite talent and a lot of salary cap space used on solid contributors but not stars.
perhaps it’s just me but the term “bridge year” implies elite prospects or a cadre of young players ready to take the team to the next level and elevate the team’s potential. I don’t see that at all with the current Bruins roster/organizational depth.
