Huge questions surround the Bruins and Panthers

The Buffalo Sabres’ path to finally making the playoffs after a 12-year drought is already tough enough for the Atlantic Division. Getting into the playoffs will be a whole different story. For five consecutive seasons, the representative of the Eastern Conference in the Stanley Cup final has come from the Atlantic.

Boston lost Game 7 to St. Louis in 2019. Tampa Bay won back-to-back Cups in 2020 and 2021, beating Atlantic Division-turned-North representative Montreal during the Covid-19 shortened 21 season. The Lightning then lost to Colorado in 2022, and Florida fell to Las Vegas this year.

That’s four of the division’s eight teams that have reached the finals in the last five years alone. A daunting thought to ponder, especially considering the Toronto Maple Leafs have topped 100 points in the last four full seasons and have only won one playoff series.

Last season, of course, Boston was the talk of the hockey world for months after setting all-time records with 65 wins and 135 points. But that historic regular season was rendered moot in a first-round upset at the hands of Florida, which erased a 3-1 series deficit to knock out the Bruins in overtime of Game 7 at TD Garden.

The comeback sent the Panthers – who reached the playoffs with a single point lead over the Sabers – on a magic carpet ride that lasted until mid-June. They beat Toronto in five games and swept Carolina in four, the latter victory putting Florida in its first Cup final since 1996. Injuries and a nine-day layoff before the series conspired to end the team’s hopes. Panthers in their five-game loss to the Golden Knights.

Now, the two teams that have been the most talked about in the division during the regular season and playoffs face major questions heading into the 2023-24 season. It’s too much to ask for repeat performances. The basic question: Will either make the playoffs? The Sabers may view both as possible targets to move past.

Due to a scheduling quirk, the 2023-24 season will be the first in Sabers history where they play only one game in Boston. The Bruins and Panthers are the Atlantic teams this year that Buffalo will face three times, instead of the usual four.

Add: Milan Lucic, James van Riemsdyk, Morgan Geekie, Jesper Boqvist, Kevin Shattenkirk, Patrick Brown.

To subtract: Patrice Bergeron (retirement), David Krejci (retirement or play in Europe possible), Taylor Hall (Chicago), Tyler Bertuzzi (Toronto), Dmitry Orlov (Carolina), Connor Clifton (Buffalo), Nick Foligno (Chicago), Garnet Hathaway ( Philadelphia), Tomas Nosek (New Jersey)

2023-24 games against the Sabres: November 14 and December 27 at KeyBank Center; December 7 at TD Garden.

Analysis: No team in the NHL will likely take a step back more than the Bruins. Bergeron declared it a career on July 25, and a decision remains to be made by Krejci. The signatures on the front indicate that management was preparing for the retirement of both. Additionally, the Bruins suffered a salary cap hit in Hall and big free agent losses in Bertuzzi, Orlov and Clifton. Their replacements are indescribable.

Lucic’s reunion is clearly an act of pandering to a panicked fan base, trying to bring things back to the 2011 Cup campaign. But Lucic is now 35 and is coming off a seven-goal season in Calgary. Nowadays, its name’s bark is much larger than its actual bite.

“We had a very good team this year. We had a lot of good players and we had some tough decisions to make,” general manager Don Sweeney said in July, refuting the notion that the Bruins were beginning a rebuild. “We are still waiting for certain decisions. It’s not the goal to strip things away.

The Bruins may finally pay the price for their astonishing drafting ineptitude. In the five drafts from 2018 to 2022the only one of Boston’s 27 selections to play a single NHL game was 2018 third-rounder Jakub Lauko, and he scored just four goals while playing in just 23 games.

That said, a lot of people wrote off Boston last season and were wrong. The Bruins still have Linus Ullmark and Jeremy Swayman in goal, Charlie McAvoy and Hampus Lindholm on defense and the trio of David Pastrnak, Brad Marchand and Jake DeBrusk up front. They remain a team on the verge of the playoffs even without Bergeron, but are in danger of becoming just the fourth Presidents’ Trophy winner to miss the playoffs next season.

Add: Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Niko Mikkola, Mike Reilly, Dmitry Kulikov, Evan Rodrigues.

To subtract: Radko Gudas (Anaheim), Anthony Duclair (San Jose), Alex Lyon (Detroit).

2023-24 games against the Sabres: February 15 at KeyBank Center, February 27 and April 13 at BB&T Center.

Analysis: When Colorado defenseman Erik Johnson signed with the Sabers last month, He spoke openly about the “Stanley Cup tax” the Avalanche have paid in nagging injuries during their run in 2022. The Panthers are going through a similar problem. Defensemen Aaron Ekblad and Brandon Montour both required shoulder surgery after the final. Their return dates are uncertain, but could extend into next season.

All-purpose forward Matthew Tkachuk suffered a broken sternum in Game 3 against Vegas and was gutted in Game 4, but did not play in the Finals. His status for the start of the season also remains uncertain.

“We’re going to have a really hard time making the playoffs next year. It’s a fact,” said coach Paul Maurice, referring to the injuries after the Cup final.

The loss of Gudas takes away a lot of the Panthers’ aggressiveness on the back end. Not having Montour and Ekblad for a while greatly hurts their skill quotient. At this stage of their careers, newcomers like Ekman-Larsson, former Saber Kulikov, Mikkola and Reilly are journeymen.

Remember, the Panthers have allowed 273 goals, the most of any team in the playoffs. Only a 6-0 late regular season run by backup goaltender Lyon got them into the playoffs, and then Sergei Bobrovsky heated up against Boston after a pedestrian 3.07/.901 regular season mark. Former first-round pick Spencer Knight, who was part of the NHLPA’s player assistance program, attended July’s development camp and will need to get his game back in goal.

Former Saber Rodrigues, who had nice runs in Pittsburgh and Colorado, got a four-year, $12 million contract to join the Panthers on July 1. They stay deep on offense and he will help them. But the questions in defense and goal are real. Come October, that miraculous run to the final won’t mean much.

A disappointment for the Sabres: no game against the Panthers until February, meaning they won’t catch potentially short-handed Florida early in the season.

Next: Toronto and Tampa Bay.