Bruins

They're currently 3-3 on the year, despite enduring injuries to some of their mainstays (Bananaman, Dave Scatchard) and a holdout by their best defenseman (Nick Boynton, who just signed).  While that's nothing to sneeze at, they're in last place.  One can imagine the Leafs, Sabres and Habs eventually giving way, but one can also imagine them keeping it up.  I'd probably put the B's down for third place behind Ottawa and the Leafs, but that's not too confident a statement at this point... the Canadiens and Sabres really aren't that far behind.  The Sens probably own the division, but the rest is anyone's guess.  Jason Allison and Eric Lindros shouldn't stay healthy all season for the Leafs, but they might.  Alexei Kovalev should pot 40 goals with the new rules, but he might not.  Buffalo is scoring goals with Daniel Briere, smoke, and mirrors... is anyone besides Briere and Chris Drury worth worrying about?

The Bruins' offense comes and goes, but has been evenly distributed... Glen Murray, Patrice Bergeron, P.J. Axelsson, Sergei Samsonov, Bananaman and Brad Isbister have all been in the scoring summaries consistently.  Isbister's play has been a big plus... he hasn't done jack in a few years, so his performance has been a nice surprise.  But on the whole, only Shawn McEachern (6 GP, 0 pts, -6 +/-) appears lost.  The checking line (Axelsson/Isbister, Dave Scatchard, Tom Fitzgerald) has some offensive punch as well, so there's a good deal of potential.

Their defense is also evenly distributed... shitty all the way through.  They need Boynton to get his head in the game, stat.  And the rooks need to learn a little bit faster.

If we end up chalking the season up to experience, and just tell Andrew Alberts, Kevin Dallman, Milan Jurcina et al to learn what they can and pray for Andrew Raycroft to bail them out, maybe it'll pay off by springtime.  But if they have playoff aspirations, it looks like their work is cut out for them.