Passing ships pull into Hall together

Seeing a fun-loving, 18-year-old Joe Thornton pull on full goalie gear in the sweltering heat of 1997 to play net in a street-hockey game at Revere Beach involving Boston Bruins coaching and scouting staff, future teammates, the legendary Willie O’Ree(!) and – gasp – media was an experience I will never forget.

It seemed like the phenom-elect chosen first overall by the dead-last Bruins that hot summer was at the very beginning of something generationally special, especially with Sergei Samsonov scheduled to arrive with practically a half a new roster under new coach Pat Burns.

The Boston Bruins are back, baby.

The change coming to the Bruins uniform this season is quite similar to the change they made from the 1967-74 version as seen up top to the plainer look shown during the 10 magical games that Bobby Orr and Brad Park played together in the fall of 1975.

This day, coming almost 28 years later, was meant to celebrate “Jumbo” Joe Thornton, the captain of the Boston Bruins, but life sometimes throws us curveballs, disappointments, even divorces.

Things didn’t go according to plan, especially in the playoffs that preceded the NHL’s 2004-05 lockout season or the fall of 2005 when the otherwise ill-prepared Bruins were a total hodgepodge going into the salary-cap era.

Torn rib cartilage kept Thornton, who played all seven games, pointless against the Claude Julien-coached Montreal Canadiens in the 2004 playoffs. So what had been a steady ascent to the elites of the NHL was suddenly under a newfound scrutiny. When the NHL was dark, Thornton and Rick Nash played together (and won together) on the same line with HC Davos of the Swiss Elite League, playing to crowds of approximately 6,000 under a wooden roof that looked more like the cathedral ceiling of a sky resort.

It was hard seeing Thornton thrive six time zones away, as the NHL and the players’ union held their standoff. Thornton would return, and one day 13 seasons later Nash would also come to Boston. Neither’s comeback tour was successful.

Thanks to a botched lockout strategy, the 2005-06 Bruins had been banking on the availability of star players on other teams due to the new salary-cap constraints, but the 11th-hour inclusion of the 24% salary rollback proposed by the NHLPA in lieu of a hard salary cap let the air out of Boston’s hope-so balloon. When the union capitulated, the Bruins were among the teams staring at empty grocery-store shelves at kickoff time of Super Bowl Sunday. They hadn’t kept their own players, and now they were tasked with putting together a squad without being able to get at anyone else’s players.

Owner Jeremy Jacobs later told Rink Rap that the strategy of offloading contracts from before the lockout was the league’s advice to all teams. The Bruins followed. Thus, players like Mike Knuble were no longer Bruins when the NHL went back to work in October 2005. Much of the 2003-04 squad that finished second in the Eastern Conference to eventual champion Tampa Bay was scattered about the NHL when the Bruins held training camp. Second and third choices failed to cut the mustard.

At the epicenter of the Bruins’ issues, Thornton struggled to find his mojo, and on a fateful Nov. 29 in New Jersey, the Bruins lost a 2-0 lead, were tied 2-2 and facing a D-zone draw in the final minute of regulation time. Pesky Devils centerman John Madden beat Thornton on the dot, drawing the puck to Alexander Mogilny, whose shot beat Andrew Raycroft with 32 ticks left on the Meadowlands game clock.

Having been engaged in slowly expanding trade talks with the Bruins, the San Jose Sharks were intently paying attention to this game. As the Bruins skated off the ice, General Manager Mike O’Connell’s phone rang. It was Sharks GM Doug Wilson. The next day, Thornton was Shark, and defenseman Brad Stuart, center Wayne Primeau and left wing Marco Sturm were Bruins.

Just like that it was over.

Thornton went on to revive his career in San Jose and, at season’s end, was voted the Hart Memorial Trophy as the NHL’s Most Valuable Player. He is the only player to ever win the Hart after being traded during that season.

For Boston, the broken dream of what drafting Thornton first overall in ’97 promised would eventually come true six seasons after the blockbuster deal and thanks largely to that epic failure because it led to the first dismissal of the general manager in franchise history.

Harry Sinden said he had told O’Connell that, if he believed trading Thornton was the right move to help the team, then he had to follow through and do it. O’Connell did believe and did the deal, but the Bruins’ failure to make the 2006 playoffs sealed his demise. Ironically, O’Connell’s dismissal came in March, before the season ended, because, as Sinden explained, the team did not want him making roster moves when a change was probably in store. Those moves came in the same week when O’Connell extended two players: PJ Axelsson and Tim Thomas.

I hope the pink slip included a thank-you note.

Overall, O’Connell doesn’t get enough credit for his roster building that saw the Bruins finish second overall to eventual champion Detroit in 2001-02 or take second in the Eastern Conference in 2003-04 to eventual champion Tampa Bay. His five-year tenure was hogtied on its 2000-01 and 2005-06 bookends, first by the inheritance of Paul Coffey and Mike Keenan and lastly by the NHL lockout year.

Serendipity

If evaluated fairly, O’C will go down as the Bruins’ Dan Duquette because his management team found Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci, the two principal members of Boston’s 2011 Stanley Cup spinal cord.

But there was no climbing Mount Everest without the guy who climbed Kilimanjaro, and that would be Zdeno Chara.

With the assistance of interim GM Jeff Gorton, new hire Peter Chiarelli hastened together a mess of a team upon his 2006 arrival, but one thing he got right was July 1. He had Gorton sign Marc Savard and, 30 minutes later, Chara in free agency. As Chiarelli sat with the Ottawa Senators during the NHL Draft that June, Gorton and the Bruins staff selected Phil Kessel fifth overall and Brad Marchand in the third round.

It would take more playoff heartbreak, more trades, more picks and more signings before the Bruins finally realized their sixth Stanley Cup championship on June 15, 2011 with a Game 7 shutout of the widely favored Canucks in Vancouver.

The victory spawned what, at the time, was the most-attended parade in Boston history. Proving they were not a one-hit wonder, the Bruins went back to the Cup final 2013, losing a hard-fought, six-game final to quasi-dynastic Chicago, and in their next iteration under GM Don Sweeney would see an aging Chara battle on through a broken jaw during the seven-game defeat against St. Louis in 2019.

It was an incredible run, and Chara’s role in bringing the Bruins back to relevance in the wider scope of a Boston sports landscape dominated for two decades by the Patriots and Red Sox cannot be underestimated.

Today, the HHOF announced its Class of 2025, and Chara, Thornton and Mogilny, who all played roles of varying impact in the scenario that led to Thornton leaving Boston and Chara arriving 20 and 19 years ago respectively, are Hall of Famers.

“Across his exceptional 24-year career, Zdeno put forth an unparalleled combination of size, strength, and ability each time he took the ice. He kept opponents on notice with his commanding physicality and set the tone for his teammates with a stout defensive acumen, all while having the power at any given time to unleash one of the hardest shots ever recorded,” said Bruins president Cam Neely in a statement issued by the team. “His legendary leadership qualities were also continually on display, particularly when it came to his renowned off-ice conditioning which set a standard for all our players to follow. To put it simply, Zdeno’s skill set stands among the most unique in the century-plus history of the National Hockey League, making him enormously worthy of enshrinement into the Hockey Hall of Fame where he will be remembered forever as one of the very best to play our sport.”

For Mogilny, election to the sport’s highest honor was a long time coming for a Russian phenom whose incredible scoring ability had many scratching their heads as to why he had not made the grade to this point.

The trio was joined by: defenseman Duncan Keith of three Cup championships with the Chicago Blackhawks; two wonderful women’s players, Canadian Jenn Botterill and American Brianna Decker, both Olympic Gold medalists and members of IIHF World Championship teams; Danielle Sauvageau, the first woman ever elected in the Builder’s Category, which also welcomes the great Jack Parker, the Boston University legend of 40 years behind the BU bench and 897 victories.

As a new captain in the NHL upon joining the Bruins, Chara was famous for his refusal to let anyone refer to Boston’s first-year players as “rookies.” He sought to and successfully set a standard of culture in the dressing room that permeated the ice on the teams he led.

His community involvement was recognized by Bruins CEO Charlie Jacobs:

“Today’s news cements Zee’s legacy as not just one of the greatest to ever wear the Bruins logo, but one of the best in the sport of hockey. For many years, Bruins fans had a front row seat to his skill set and his amazing drive to consistently be at the top of his game. The memories of watching him lift the Stanley Cup will last a lifetime. It’s also important to call out the incredible impact he had and still has to this day in the community, proudly representing the Spoked-B and the city of Boston everywhere he goes. He set an example of what it means to be a Boston Bruin for generations to come and we are so proud of the honor bestowed upon him by the Hockey Hall of Fame.”

Owner of the Bruins Jeremy Jacobs sums it up:

“Zee is a superb human being in so many ways. Not only in size and skill, but also in his thoughtfulness and the respect he commands. It’s no surprise that he was selected in his first year of eligibility, because he’s truly special. The Bruins were fortunate to get him and raise the Cup with him.”

Rink Rap

Longevity and statistical excellence so central to Hall of Fame voting in Major League Baseball has become too big a part of the Hockey Hall of Fame’s equation.

As far as I’m concerned, Rick Middleton is a Hall of Famer – I don’t care what anyone says. But he’s not in there and why? Because his stats fall slightly on the wrong side of arbitrary dividing lines drawn by committees looking for a way to justify the in’s and out’s of the decision. Paul Kariya, a similarly skilled forward, was elected with only slightly better career statistics. Good for him. He should be in. So should Nifty.

New (old) Uniforms

Wednesday, Sweeney will meet the media, and it’s expected he will unveil the Bruins’ new uniforms for the 2025-26 season. If they look strangely familiar to young fans, it’s because it will look like the sweater worn for the Centennial Game played Dec. 1, 2024, against the Montreal Canadiens at TD Garden. To older fans, it’s a return to a look that identified the Bruins for the final two decades of the old-Garden era (1974-95). The change being made now is eerily similar to the one the Bruins made in 1974, going with plain shoulders and taking a lot of gold out of the respective black and white game sweaters. Of equal significance is a return to a less-detailed spoked-B crest, also harkening back to the old-Garden era.

One thing Sinden wanted when the Bruins closed the old Garden and opened the FleetCenter 30 (!) years ago was one logo, like Chicago has and Montreal has. Even the Detroit Red Wings, for a short spell in the mid 1970s, had the same logo on both red and white sweaters. This is a direct departure from Sinden’s unified logo of the past 30 years. At age 92, I’m not sure how he feels about it, but he can’t be too upset about a gold B with a gold circle against the black home sweater because that was the home uniform on May 10, 1970, the afternoon that he and Bobby Orr were carried on the shoulders of players after the emotional Cup triumph over the Blues.