The Boston Bruins are going to look very different this season

Early on Monday morning, David Kreijci announced his retirement from the game of hockey, leaving the Boston Bruins with yet another hole in their roster.

The Boston Bruins are going to look very different this season

Boston has said goodbye to some pretty big players this offseason. For starters Patrice Bergeron announced his retirement this past month. That in itself is a really big loss for the team, losing your captain and most valuable center is a tough hit. On top of that David Kreijci also retired leaving another big hole down the middle.

The team also lost Tyler Bertuzzi, Dmitri Orlov, Taylor Hall, Connor Clifton, Garnet Hathaway and Nick Foligno. All in all, that is a big group of players, sure a few of them were rentals from this past season, but there is a lot of major parts of the roster walking out the door this offseason.

While the defense and goaltending are still the same, the Bruins are going to be going through an identity shift this upcoming season. It really looked like last season was their “last dance” run at a championship, and while they had a great regular season, the playoffs were not one to remember.

Boston very well could be fine this upcoming season. They still have Linus Ullmark and Jeremy Swayman making up one of the best goaltending duos in the league. They still have Charlie McAvoy, Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak, but this group is missing out on some of the talent they had in years past.

The changing of the guard is going to come in the Atlantic Division. The days of Boston, Toronto and Tampa Bay ruling the division and holding all three spots in the playoffs is bound to change, sooner rather than later. There are a lot of good teams that have done their best to make some big additions this offseason, and that might leave the Bruins on the outside looking in for a playoff spot this season.