The Bruins have officially kicked off the 2021-2022 season and boast a modest 4-3 record through the first seven games. It hasn’t always been pretty, and it certainly hasn’t always been consistent, but through what the Bruins have dealt with thus far, it’s not all bad.

We’ve started to see what life is like without that guy named Tuukka Rask and it’s certainly not the worst case scenario, but do we have a clear frontrunner yet? I’m not so sure. The Bruins payed a lot of money to acquire Linus Ullmark from Buffalo this past offseason and he looked very shaky during preseason, but that’s not really a surprise for a new goaltender coming into a new system. That lead to young Jeremy Swayman getting the go-ahead for games 1 and 2 for Boston where he showed a little bit of last season’s magic against Dallas, but then got truly exposed for the first time in his career vs Philly in game 2.

I think I speak for a lot of people when I say that the Bruins fanbase needs to relax a little with their expectations of Jeremy Swayman. Yes, he played phenomenally last season and probably should’ve been the starter in the postseason especially considering Tuukka Rask was dealing with a significant hip injury, and I can’t remember if that was disclosed to the team or not. All that being said, Jeremy Swayman, including this season, has played in a grand total of 15 NHL games. That is an incredibly small sample size, and Bruins nation is bowing down to him like he’s the second-coming of 2011 postseason Tim Thomas. He’s 22 years old, and has not been tested with a full NHL season. Linus Ullmark has proven himself to be a successful goaltender on what was a dumpster fire organization in the Buffalo Sabres. What we’re witnessing right now is Bruce Cassidy deciphering who gives his team a better chance at more wins, and that’s likely going to lead to a more 50/50 split like we’re used to seeing with Bruins goaltenders anyways. Jeremy Swayman is great and his ceiling is very high, but he’s not the out-and-out starter, and that’s all I’ll say on that right now.

Mix in all of that with a few key injuries early with Nick Foligno and Craig Smith, and the Bruins have had to deal with lineup switches and shifts early on, which could honestly prove beneficial in the long run, dealing with this type of adversity early in the season. But as of now, it’s lead to a little inconsistency in their play, and as we’ve seen over the years, when the Bruins are hot, they’re red hot, and then they’re cold, they’re ice cold.

All that being said, I’ve really liked what I’ve seen from the new acquisitions in Haula, Nosek, Foligno, and Forbort. They just seem to have bought into Cassidy’s system flawlessly, they’re fast, they grind for 60 minutes, and they gel with the rest of the locker room. That’s about all you can ask of new signings in this league, and they’ve done it well.

The SparkNotes version of this season so far is, we’re still figuring out the goaltending situation, there’s been a few injuries that have shaken things up and slowed down the progression of the team, top guys like Marchand, Pastrnak, Hall, and Coyle have been producing, and the new guys are fitting in really well.

This should be a playoff team to finish the year, and that’s about as far as I’ll go in the world of way-too-early predictions.

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