There's a story Richard Johnson likes to tell about Bobby Orr and flying, though it's not the one the city of Boston reveres. As the curator of The Sports Museum, the TD Garden's in-house shrine to local sports lore, Johnson is familiar with the sight that inspired the statue outside of the arena: No. 4 in black scoring before being tripped in the St. Louis Blues' crease, airborne in the second after he clinched the Stanley Cup for the Bruins in 1970.
Johnson is part of the Bruins' extended family, dating back almost 40 years to when he was hired for the job. In fact, his experience with the team goes back even further.
He was 13 years old when he first set foot on a plane, newly trusted to travel alone to visit his brother in Canada. Johnson arrived at Logan International with a frayed copy of The Hockey News and $20, seeking the sort of inconceivably cheap fare that was exclusive to the era. The next flight out was full, but he was able to snare an open seat on a private craft departing shortly thereafter.
"I walk across the tarmac, up the steps," Johnson said. "I could not have been more gobsmacked in my life, at any moment, when I arrived and I was on the Boston Bruins' charter, heading to Montreal in March of 1969."
Bruins fans won't have any close contact with the team during this year's playoffs, but their formidable regular season produced plenty of reasons to get excited from afar. David Pastrnak won a share of the Maurice "Rocket" Richard Trophy, and no team allowed fewer goals than Boston's 2.39 per game. Yet, as the league's hub-city postseason dawns in Toronto and Edmonton, Johnson's generation has grounds to contemplate days of yore - and of Orr, specifically, the catalyst for what remains the Bruins' greatest run of success in a century of play.
The format of these 24-team playoffs has no precedent, but Boston's latest pursuit of the Cup is linked indelibly to two touchstone moments in the franchise's history. The first is that sweep of St. Louis 50 years ago, an anniversary the Bruins were to honor at a home game in late March before the coronavirus pandemic upended everyone's plans. The other is from last year, when Jordan Binnington and the Blues dashed Boston's championship hopes at The Garden in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final.
That vexing 4-1 defeat kept the Bruins' veteran cornerstones - Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand, David Krejci, Zdeno Chara, and Tuukka Rask - from claiming the second Cup they've chased together for an unusually long time. The only titles the club has won since Orr's goal in 1970 came soon afterward in 1972 and then much later in 2011, the latter of which was Marchand's rookie year. Contrast that haul with the seven finals Boston lost since 1972 and you have a perennial contender with a lot of close calls to rue.
Who in this strange summer holds the edge in the Eastern Conference? The 100-point Presidents' Trophy winner backstopped by Rask, a Vezina Trophy nominee who led the league in Goals Saved Above Average? The Tampa Bay Lightning, a loaded team out to shed its own baggage - that sorry sweep against Columbus last year? The field, bolstered by the presence of Alex Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby, and by the unpredictability that's expected to govern the results of the restart?
On the opportunity that awaits the Bruins these next two months, Johnson has another question, reflecting a vision fit for his line of work and 2020.
"Wouldn't it be sweet to have a photo op at some point - probably everyone would be wearing a mask - of Chara and Bobby Orr shaking hands in front of the trophy?" he said. "The years have gone by, but when you win a Cup, everything sort of blends together."
The Bruins were excellent during the regular season, reeling off separate win streaks of six, eight, and six games. That stands in contrast to what befell the New England Patriots and Boston Red Sox earlier this year. Tom Brady departed in free agency and Mookie Betts was shipped to the Los Angeles Dodgers. MLB's and the NFL's most frequent champions this century have taken a hit, leaving one true title threat to campaign for Boston sports supremacy.
"Winning a Stanley Cup or any kind of major trophy in Boston is a big thing," Rask said during the Bruins' pre-playoff training camp last week. "That's our goal. That hasn't changed. Obviously, everything else around it in the world has changed, so we just have to try to adapt and try to build that groove and chemistry back up."
Combined with the city's recent title history, the immense promise of this Bruins roster was always bound to engender high expectations. Boston ticked every box in 2019-20. Rask - who backed up Tim Thomas during the 2011 Cup run - long ago assumed the role of tested star No. 1 netminder; his save percentage figures (.929 overall and .939 at even strength) were the best among NHL starters this season. Chara and Brandon Carlo anchored the league's third-best penalty kill, and Torey Krug ran the point on a power play that ranked second. Pastrnak (95 points) and Marchand (87) placed fourth and sixth in NHL scoring, respectively, while Bergeron, Boston's "Perfection Line" center, is a Selke Trophy finalist for the ninth straight year.
"We kind of feel like we can do anything. We just feel like we can control the complete game," Marchand said earlier this season about the thrill of playing alongside his linemates when everything clicks.
Until the Bruins entered the bubble in Toronto, though, Marchand and Bergeron hadn't skated with Pastrnak since March, as the latter was in quarantine after coming in contact with someone who tested positive for COVID-19.
Pastrnak's wasn't the only absence that discombobulated Boston's return. Trade-deadline pickup Ondrej Kase missed camp in its entirety, and Krug, Krejci, Charlie Coyle, and Charlie McAvoy each sat out various sessions. Rask recently fractured a glove-hand finger doing box jumps but said it won't hinder him in Toronto. It all shined a spotlight on the need for complementary players to be ready for the moment, whether or not conspicuous lineup adjustments - Jaroslav Halak starting in lieu of Rask, or Anders Bjork supplanting Pastrnak on Bergeron's right wing - have to be made.
"We've said that all along. Take out the injury factor. There could be people who, for (COVID) testing purposes, fall behind and you have to rely on your depth," head coach Bruce Cassidy said during camp. "We're experiencing a bit of that right now, even though we haven't played any games."
For Boston, those begin Thursday night with a single exhibition versus the Columbus Blue Jackets, followed by a round robin featuring each conference's four highest achievers. After pacing the league in points through 70 games, the Bruins' playoff seed will be decided in a tiny sample: one game apiece against the Tampa Bay Lightning, Washington Capitals, and Philadelphia Flyers. Those teams and the Pittsburgh Penguins all finished the season with points percentages above .620. Lower down the Eastern standings, the Blue Jackets, Toronto Maple Leafs, and New York Rangers have either the stinginess or firepower to trouble a favored opponent if they advance past the qualifiers.
| Eastern round robin | Away team | Home team | Time (ET) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sunday‚ Aug. 2 | Philadelphia | Boston | 3 p.m. |
| Monday‚ Aug. 3 | Washington | Tampa Bay | 4 p.m. |
| Wednesday‚ Aug. 5 | Tampa Bay | Boston | 4 p.m. |
| Thursday‚ Aug. 6 | Washington | Philadelphia | TBD |
| Saturday‚ Aug. 8 | Philadelphia | Tampa Bay | TBD |
| Sunday‚ Aug. 9 | Boston | Washington | TBD |
Of course, it's impossible to predict how any team will handle this postseason's signature challenge of quickly segueing into high-stakes hockey following months of lockdown and forced rest. This uncharted territory isn't lost on Bruins president Cam Neely, who wondered recently if this year's Cup should come with an asterisk - as a point of pride, not shame, "because of how difficult and mentally challenging it's going to be" to win it all.
By now, Boston has waited abnormally long - nearly 14 months since the 2019 playoffs concluded - to try to redeem that Game 7 letdown against St. Louis. A five-goal effort to avoid elimination on the road a few nights earlier didn't carry forward to the decisive affair last June 12, when the Bruins failed to score on Binnington until 2:10 remained in the third period. Where Orr once splayed joyously in mid-air, last year's final ended with Marchand in tears and Chara peering through his face shield - protection for his freshly fractured jaw - at the Blues' celebration across the ice.
"Those guys have less years in front of them than they do behind them in their careers. They look at the team that they have around them. They look at the opportunity that's in front of them. They want to seize that," Neely said of the Bruins' veteran core. "These guys have had a taste of winning. They've had a taste of probably the worst possible scenario: losing in Game 7 of the final.
"They are still hungry. They're a hungry group, and I think it really pulls everybody along."
The Sports Museum at TD Garden has been closed since the season paused in March, and Johnson has been furloughed since April, waiting for the day the building reopens. But he doesn't need to be there to rattle off select memorabilia the museum preserved from Orr's prime, whether it's one of Phil Esposito's aggressively curved sticks, a goalie mask with painted stitches that Gerry Cheevers wore in practice, a photo of Orr embracing late Bruins trainer John "Frosty" Forristall, or the miniature Stanley Cups that were awarded to Forristall - like all Bruins personnel - in 1970 and 1972 and loaned to the museum by his family.
Nine years ago, during the Bruins' most recent championship summer, Johnson got a phone call summoning him to The Garden's executive offices. When he arrived, he learned that every full-time arena employee receives a special gift, as a representative of his childhood team asked for his ring size. Johnson's name is on his ring, which he treasures.
History has no direct bearing on how the Bruins will fare in the bubble - not on Pastrnak's readiness to face Philadelphia Flyers goalie Carter Hart on Sunday nor on how they navigate this 24-team playoff structure. But Johnson can't be the only Bostonian to plumb its depths for meaning, to rhapsodize about big anniversaries, to find relevance in past triumphs, to see a 50-year throughline from Orr to Chara, and to long for a new good story to tell. Ideally, one that ends happier than last year's.
"I would never count chickens in any way shape or form," Johnson said. "But I'm certainly hopeful with this team. (It has) so many key members of the 2011 team. They know how to do it."
Nick Faris is a features writer at theScore.
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