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head coach: Pat Burns

roster: C - Anson Carter, Dimitri Khristich, Joe Thornton, Ted Donato, Tim Taylor. LW - Ken Baumgartner, Rob Dimaio, Sergei Samsonov, Jason Allison, Mike Sullivan. RW - Steve Heinze, Landon Wilson, Per Johan Axelsson, Jean Yves Roy. D - Ray Bourque, Don Sweeney, Dave Ellett, Kyle McLaren, Dean Chynoweth, Mattias Timander, Dean Malkoc, Hal Gill, Darren Van Impe, Grant Ledyard. G - Byron Dafoe, Rob Tallas.

standings:

Eastern Conference - Northeast Division
Team         GP   W   L   T   PTS   GF   GA   
y-Pittsburgh 82  40  24  18    98  228  188 
x-Boston     82  39  30  13    91  221  194  
x-Buffalo    82  36  29  17    89  211  187  
x-Montreal   82  37  32  13    87  235  208  
x-Ottawa     82  34  33  15    83  193  200  
Carolina     82  33  41   8    74  200  219   

y - Clinched division
x - Clinched playoff spot

team news:

by Matt Brown, Boston Correspondent

What a difference a year makes! Last year at this time Bruins fans were whining about our last place Bruins, bemoaning Boston's first playoff miss in 30 years, and wondering how many years of looking up at the Islanders and Senators from the cellar we were doomed to endure.

Ah, those were the days when a New Englander could feel comfortable about the Bruins. Fans could finally be full-fledged members of the great unwashed legion of chronic complainers that Celtics coach Rick Pitino termed "the fellowship of the miserable." After 30 years of having to listen to Red Sox, Patriots, and even occasionally Celtics fans, grouse and bitch about their teams, the Bruins finally had something other than Jeremy Jacob's "entertaining product" to complain about. They were losers, big time.

Fortunately for the Bruins fans among us who are not clinically depressive, the Bruins descent into hockey purgatory lasted only one season. From the depths of our despair, Harry Sinden and Mike O'Connell went out and built a pretty solid hockey team for 1998. What they did could easily serve as the semester scenario for a Hockey Management 101 course (for that matter, maybe a grad school seminar). Good planning, smart personnel decisions, and not a little bit of luck combined to make the Bruins worthy candidates for comeback team of the year.

Yet it would be easy enough to present a long list of adversities to convince a Canadian who spent the hockey season on a malfunctioning Mir space station that the Bruins did worse than last year. After all, with Joe Stumpel gone, Jim Carey a bust, Don Sweeney out for most of the season, the Providence Bruins playing doormat to the AHL, half of last year's players gone (wait, maybe that goes on the "good" list), the coaching job turned down by Boston University's Jack Parker, number one draft pick Joe Thornton finishing his rookie year with like 10 points, and the team being coached by ex-Canadiens, it sounds fairly dismal. Fortunately, all that bad news is just a setup for the good things that this year's Bruins showed us.

First sign that things might not go too badly was that the Bruins didn't get jobbed in the NHL lottery the way that their Celtic brethren did. They ended up keeping their number one position on draft day, selecting the previously mentioned Joe Thornton. Then they hung on to their number eight pick (thank you, Whalers) to grab IHL sensation Sergei Samsonov. Now, when this pick was announced, a goodly number of Bruins fans had a Dmitri Kvartalnov deja vu experience. Russian forward, not too tall, scored lots of goals in the IHL, rookie of the year on the team that won the Turner Cup. Hmm. Not that this was a bad trip, mind you. After all, before fading into the obscurity of the Swiss league after two seasons, Dmitri finished third in rookie scoring with enough points to win in most years (he was behind Teemu Selanne and Boston's own Joe Juneau). He was even rumored to have made a defensive play once.

Pat Burns by Meredith Martini

Then there was Pat Burns. First reaction by a lot of fans was "Oh my God." After all, this was a guy who was at the helm of the hated Habs during several of the Bruins worst nightmares. After a while, though, after hearing the guy talk, and looking at his record, the move started to take on an eerie and perverse logic. Hey, maybe the Bruins coaching succession had gotten a little inbred with ex-Bruin players. If so, Pat Burns changed that pronto.

Then the pieces started falling into place. Trading Jozef Stumpel and the forever injured Sandy Moger brought Dimitri Khristich and Byron DaFoe. Tim Taylor was picked up from Detroit, and Mike Sullivan from Calgary, and Dave Ellett and Darren Van Impe on defense, and suddenly losing Sheldon Kennedy and Trent McCleary and Jeff Odgers didn't seem so bad.

All in all, going from last place to fifth in the East is an incredible climb, and the Bruins ended up with one of the largest improvements in total points and goals against in NHL history. Going out in the first round against the Stanley Cup finalist Washington Caps may have been painful, but it was a lot less painful than watching Ray Bourque head to the golf course last April.

The end result was that Pat Burns became the first head coach in league history to be named coach of the year with three different teams. Previously, Burns won the Adams trophy with the Canadiens in 1989 and Toronto in 1993. Pat said, "To win it three different times with three Original Six teams is something I'm very proud of."

Jason Allison by Meredith Martini

TEAM MVP: When a team improves as dramatically as the Bruins did, and it is largely as a result of a whole team effort, it is very hard to pick a single player as MVP. Yet it would be hard to go wrong by picking the player who had improved most dramatically himself. That player is Jason Allison. Allison, who picked up the affectionate nickname Bag-O-Pucks from some Bruins fans, because that was how some media pundits and NHL analysts regarded him after the big trade with Washington. Most were looking at Jim Carey and Anson Carter as the pluses in the trade, with Allison having the rap as an underachiever. But clearly, Pat Burns lit the right fire under the young center's hockey pants, because Allison essentially took all of the promise that seemed to desert him when he left Juniors, and when given the chance to be the Bruins go-to guy, delivered on NHL ice. Time and time again during the season, Jason Allison was the one who lifted the team with an awesome goal or fearless pass. He learned to use his size and reach effectively, scoring many of his goals with one hand on his stick and the other fending off an attacker or two. Pat Burns taught Allison that confidence and hard work build on one another. Playing for a coach who will settle for nothing less, Jason Allison became the player and team leader he was once expected to be. He had a lot of help along the way from some talented players like Dimitri Khristich, but Allison was clearly the player who made the Bruins tick.

SURPRISE: The cheap answer would be the entire Boston Bruins organization, left for dead the year before, coming back to make the playoffs, which few predicted. Second cheapest would be to name Byron DaFoe. Truth there is that anyone who watched Byron play for Washington or LA could have predicted that this guy, with a good defense, could shine, though perhaps not as well as he did. Heck, the Bruins with a good defense has to rank as an even bigger surprise than Lord Byron's season.

And there begins a tale. Remember that most of last year's defense spent this year in Providence (with unenviable results, it might be added). Add the loss of Don Sweeney to shoulder surgery for most of the season, and the Bruins don't look imposing, or even solid, on defense. Into this void skated Hal Gill. Gill was the towering rookie defenseman out of Providence College who seemed destined, when training camp opened, to spend most of the season back in Providence toiling under the wing of Tommy McVie.

Not so. Gill immediately showed more promise than expected. Maybe it was his size, or maybe it was playing his first shifts paired with childhood idol Ray Bourque, or maybe it was just that crafty guy Pat Burns who saw something rather good in the young man who was literally head and shoulders above everybody else. To the surprise of practically everyone, Gill not only stuck with the Bruins out of training camp, he went on to play the entire season with the big club. Hal Gill did not emerge as a dominant player, or rookie of the year candidate, or the next Ray Bourque. What he did was provide size, strength, and determination, complementing Bourque, Dave Ellett, and Kyle McLaren so that the loss of Don Sweeney to injury didn't unhinge the whole team. It is a compliment indeed when the NHL's leading scorer Jaromir Jagr is asked to name the toughest defense pairing in the NHL, and he names Ray Bourque and Hal Gill. If you watched the Penguins play the Bruins this season, the reason from Jagr's praise was obvious: unlike any other NHL defenseman, Hal Gill had the size and the reach to drape himself around Jagr like a blanket, and the quickness and strength to avoid being outmuscled by number 68.

DISAPPOINTMENT: In one way, after last year, nothing that happened to the Bruins this season even comes close to qualifying. However, there probably isn't a Bruins fan with a pulse who wasn't hoping for more from Joe Thornton. Everyone wanted the kid to come in and take over the town. It didn't happen.

The questions that remain to be answered are: 1) How much of that was Pat Burns' doing? And 2) Did Pat do right by the young man? Only time will tell, but here are some data points. Burns felt that Joe would be better off without the pressure of being the Bruins anointed savior, turning the whole franchise around single-handedly his rookie year. That one is hard to argue with. Pat Burns saw that Joe Thornton had a lot to learn about hockey beyond junior. That was precisely why he didn't send Joe back to the Soo - what Joe needed to learn, he couldn't learn at Sault Ste. Marie. Pat felt the best thing for Joe was to make him work hard on every shift, and work hard for every shift he was granted. Given the number of first round prima donnas we see these days in hockey and other sports, this is a hard philosophy to argue against.

Whatever the reason and the results, the cost was that Joe Thornton will never be NHL rookie of the year. He had one shot at it, and was beaten out by teammate Sergei Samsonov. Burns could have easily reversed their ice time if he had wanted, and then Sergei would have been denied the Calder Trophy. But that doesn't mean Thornton could have won it.

The gain is that Thornton will come to camp this year knowing more than ever what it takes to be a player, if not a star, in this league. He has an excellent short-term example to follow in Jason Allison, who after a couple of years of infrequent ice time and non-inspired play, found through Pat Burns the player he always hoped he would be. We can only hope it goes the same way for Joe Thornton.

Ted Donato by Meredith Martini

OFF-SEASON CHANGES: Boston faces several real and potential losses during the off-season. The most obvious is forward Mike Sullivan, who was claimed by Nashville in the expansion draft. The Bruins are also in danger of losing Ted Donato as a restricted free agent, as well as Dave Ellett and Dimitri Khristich. Donato was disappointed with his lessened role with the club, while the Bruins were disappointed when his production dropped off after his high-sticking suspension. Harry Sinden indicated that Ted might be elsewhere next season. Ted's many fans in Boston surely hope that whatever happens is for the best - that Teddy either return to form as a Bruins mainstay, or that he find success in a new home.

Dimitri Khristich is another Bruin who might end up somewhere else, though the likelihood is less than with Donato. Dimitri seemed to cycle between team leader and sulker on a weekly basis. One game he would be a ball o' fire, the next he would be close to invisible. Some of the negatives were blamed on contract issues, and some on his mercurial nature. Whatever else, one clear thing was his positive influence on Sergei Samsonov - Khristich was just what Samsonov needed as a role model, at least most of the time. Together with Jason Allison they formed the Bruins top line and, to a large extent, carried the offensive load for the team. Hopefully Harry Sinden can recognize the true value that Khristich brings to the Bruins, and create a contract situation that allows Dimitri to concentrate on ice hockey.

Another guy who may end up out in the cold is goalie Jim Carey. Carey underwent shoulder surgery last season after being sent to the minors. Carey, who showed little trace of his Vezina Trophy form in his starts with the Bruins, will either turn out to be the comeback player of the year, or he will be forever known as a guy who couldn't take the pressure of playing in front of his hometown crowd.

On a lighter note, the Bruins have signed defenseman Shane Belter of the Western Hockey League Kamloops Blazers to a three-year contract. They also signed center Andre Savage from Michigan Tech University to a two-year contract. Hmm... Belter and Savage. What is Pat Burns trying to tell us?

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