By: Andrew Raynus—International/National News Editor

The 2022-23 NHL season is underway and the Bruins are hoping to achieve success from their offseason moves and early victories.

The Bruins finished 10th in the league last season but got eliminated in the first round of the playoffs by the Carolina Hurricanes. The biggest moves in their quiet offseason were re-signing captain Patrice Bergeron, signing veteran Bruin David Krejci, who spent last season in his native Czech Republic, and trading Erik Haula to New Jersey for Pavel Zacha. The B’s also re-signed general manager Don Sweeney and brought in new coach Jim Montgomery. Many problems linger for the Bruins as they are dealing with some big injuries, but they are currently off to a strong start this season with a 6-1-0 record.

Coach Montgomery believes that his coaching style and the comradery among the players will lead to a great year for the Bruins. “I think there’s trust in the process, I think there’s trust in each other and I think everyone is pulling on the same rope right now,” said Montgomery.

Sharon High senior Avi Katz has high hopes for where the Bruins will end up when the playoffs start after some initial skepticism. “We didn’t do a ton in the offseason, but with the recent 10 games or so, I’ve been very optimistic and very surprised how fresh we’ve started. We’re ranked number one in the league right now with only one loss, so yeah I’m very optimistic at this point,” said Katz.

David Pastrnak has been leading the scoring for the B’s with 12 points in 7 games and some students in the SHS community feel he can build upon his past successes. “I think he’s a once-in-a-generation player. When you have those players on your team you can mold your team around them,” said senior Zack Loomis.

The Bruins have been working on a prior problem with role players not scoring, but recently, bottom 6 forwards like AJ Greer and Nick Foligno have been stepping up. “There’s so many guys that made really good plays throughout the start of the season. We were dominant in a lot of ways; just the way we forechecked, the way we kept pucks out of our danger areas and really didn’t give them a lot of life,” said Foligno, who has 4 points in 7 games.

The team has been left without star forward Brad Marchand and elite defenseman Charlie McAvoy until at least Thanksgiving, but the Bs are still finding ways to win. “To my surprise, everyone’s stepped up to fill in the positions, but I think given the strength we’ve already displayed thus far with their injuries I think when they return the team will be even stronger,” said Katz.

Loomis says the Bs might even go all the way to winning the Stanley Cup this year. “They’ve looked like the most solid team other than that Ottawa game this season, but better than any other team in the league,” he said.