That Final went seven games as well, but it didn't seem that close. The Canucks barely eked out three one-goal wins in their home rink, but were dominated in the three games at the Garden and the decisive Game 7 back at Rogers Arena. Now the Bruins face the task of trying to come up with a fitting encore as the rest of the league sets their sights on knocking off the new champs.
2010-11 Record: 46-25-11, 103 points (1st Northeast Division; 3rd Eastern Conference; beat Montreal 4-3 in first round of playoffs, Philadelphia 4-0 in second round, Tampa Bay 4-3 in Eastern Conference Final and Vancouver 4-3 in the Stanley Cup Final)
Familiar faces: For the fourth straight season, the Bruins will begin the year without a Massachusetts native on the roster. No Bay Stater has played for Boston since Bobby Allen in 2007-08. There are some New Englanders in the pipeline though, with defensemen David Warsofsky (Marshfield, Mass./Boston University), Colby Cohen (Boston University) and Tommy Cross (Hartford, Conn./Boston College) among the team's top blue-line prospects and Milton Academy's Rob O'Gara, who is committed to Yale, added to the fold in this June's draft. Mark Goggin (Dartmouth) and Josh Hennessy (Milton, Mass.) also add some local flavor to the system, while Flint, Mich. native Tim Thomas did play collegiately at the University of Vermont.
Key additions: D Joe Corvo (trade with Carolina); F Benoit Pouliot (free agent); D Dougie Hamilton (draft); F Josh Hennessy (free agent); F Jamie Tardif (free agent)
Key losses: F Mark Recchi (retired); F Michael Ryder (signed with Dallas); D Tomas Kaberle (signed with Carolina); D Shane Hnidy (free agent)
Burning question: Can the Bruins repeat as Cup champions?
No team has won back-to-back Cups since the Red Wings in 1997 and 1998. That's hardly a surprise considering the toll it takes on a team to survive the grueling road to the Cup, followed by a short offseason and then having every opponent gunning for you every night. But the Bruins are better positioned to make another run than most recent champs, many of which faced significant personnel changes as other organizations raided their rosters in free agency or they simply weren't able to keep everyone due to salary cap constraints.
While the Bruins will miss Mark Recchi and Michael Ryder, the rest of the forward corps returns intact. Tomas Kaberle is the only regular on defense gone and Joe Corvo could be a better fit. Tim Thomas will be hard-pressed to match his record-setting numbers from last year, but he should remain among the game's elite netminders.
The continuity with so many players returning gives the Bruins a major advantage in trying to repeat, especially since the club's strong chemistry was such a vial part of their success last season.
2011-12 outlook: The Bruins have just about everyone back from last year, including the top line of David Krejci (13-49-62, plus an NHL-leading 12-11-23 in the postseason), Milan Lucic (30-32-62) and Nathan Horton (26-27-53). Patrice Bergeron (22-35-57, plus6-14-20 in playoffs) returns to anchor the second line, but the Bruins must still re-sign restricted free agent Brad Marchand, who enjoyed a breakthrough campaign in the regular season (21-20-41), and was even more effective in the postseason (11-8-19). Tyler Seguin had just 11-11-22 totals in limited action as a rookie, but should get a chance to play a bigger role this season, perhaps replacing Recchi on Bergeron's other flank.
Boston will still have its impressive depth up front with trade deadline pickups Rich Peverley and Chris Kelly around for a full season and the highly effective fourth line of Shawn Thornton, Gregory Campbell and Daniel Paille all back as well.
Zdeno Chara is also back to lead the defense after being a Norris finalist last year and posting a league-best plus-33 rating. Claude Julien's decision to put Chara and Dennis Seidenberg together as a top shutdown pairing may have been his most important move in the playoffs. Andrew Ference, Johnny Boychuk, Adam McQuaid and newcomer Corvo round out a solid, veteran defense, and Thomas (35-11-9, 2.00 GAA, .938 save percentage) and Tuukka Rask give them the security blanket of having the league's top netminding duo behind them.
Did you know? The Bruins ended their Stanley Cup drought this spring, but they did it without ever snapping out of their drought on the power play. The Bruins managed to convert just 10 of their 88 chances with the man advantage in the postseason, a success rate of 11.4 percent. To put that in perspective, Florida was dead last in the NHL on the power play during the regular season, and the Panthers had a 13.1 percent success rate.
Boston bucked the trend of special teams dominating play in the post-lockout era. The five previous Cup winners since the rule changes enacted after that work stoppage were a combined 20.3 percent on the power play, with Carolina in 2006 (24.0 percent), Pittsburgh in 2009 (20.6 percent) and Chicago in 2010 (22.5 percent) all close to doubling Boston's success rate this past spring. The Bruins survived thanks to dominating play at even strength, scoring a league-best 62 goals at 5-on-5 in the playoffs (Tampa Bay was a distant second in that category with 37), and by limiting the opposition's power play as well, most notably holding Vancouver's to just two goals on 33 chances in the Final (6.1 percent).
With the bulk of the offseason moves complete and the start of another NHL season inching closer, NESN.com Bruins beat writer Douglas Flynn will be previewing one team from each conference every day through August 26.
Thursday, August 25: Toronto Maple Leafs and Minnesota Wild
