“It was time to go,” Bourque has often noted in the decades since his trade to Colorado. “Things were just bad.”
The first cut at the 2025-26 roster that new coach Marco Sturm tidied up with the front office over the weekend truly marks a new chapter in Bruins history.
What it portends, who knows?
For the first time since Tim Thomas first suited up here in October 2002, the Bruins will enter a season with a roster absent of all the core players who defined the franchise for upward of the last quarter-century.
Brad Marchand, last seen hoisting the Cup with the Panthers in June, was the last to leave the building, dealt away on March 7.
Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci (a combined 2,326 regular-season games, 330 more in the playoffs) called it quits in the summer of 2023.
Zdeno Chara, who’ll be enshrined in the Hockey Hall of Fame next month, played his last shift in Black and Gold just over five years ago (Aug. 31, 2020).
Tuukka Rask hoped to keep on keepin’ on, but injuries forced him to call it quits at age 34 soon after what was his last stand in net (Jan. 24, 2022). Rask and Thomas (last game here: April 25, 2012), appeared in 942 regular-season games and defined the franchise’s goaltending for the better part of 20 years.
Jeremy Swayman, in his dream of dreams, one day could be considered in the same goalie company.
It was that core, particularly Thomas’s MVP heroics, that helped deliver the Cup in 2011, what stands today as the franchise’s lone title since 1972. All but Thomas were part of the roster bedrock that led to the Stanley Cup Final returns in 2013 and 2019 — the club’s second and third SCF runs in nine seasons.
All that talent and franchise identity gone as 2025-26 begins. The end of that legacy tour is complete.
Should the Bruins have won more than one Cup in those years? For all that franchise-defining talent, yes. Three more victories — two in 2013 vs. Chicago, one in 2019 vs. St. Louis — would have delivered the most titles the franchise ever mined in a decade.
Where from here? The future rests mainly in the hands of David Pastrnak, Charlie McAvoy, and Swayman. While an encouraging trio, the obvious roster void, and potential fatal flaw, is at No. 1 center, with Sturm about to venture into his first season without a roster equivalent of Bergeron and/or Krejci.
When they filled the No. 1 job as a tandem, it provided a rare strength, one that nightly provided an edge over most opponents. Now it’s Elias Lindholm (maybe) at No. 1 and trick or treat at No. 2. As of Saturday afternoon’s preseason closer vs. the Rangers, it appeared Casey Mittelstadt had a hold on the two hole and Fraser Minten at No. 3. We’ll see what happens now that community auditions have come to a close.
The Bruins have to hope the developing situation at center doesn’t turn into a revoltin’ development. The new season begins with all eyes on the top two pivot spots.
History shows that these end-of-era talent turnovers, including some storied franchises of the last half-century, can be extremely painful:
⋅ The vaunted Canadiens strung together four Cup titles in 1976-79, with legendary backstop Ken Dryden abruptly calling it quits after the last one. Les Glorieux didn’t win again until 1986 (with brash Patrick Roy in net) and they have won only once since (1993). The 1986 team had Larry Robinson, Bob Gainey, and Mario Tremblay as the lone heavies left from the Dryden era.
⋅ The Islanders also won four in a row (1980-83) and were denied a fifth, knocked out by the Oilers in the 1984 Final. The sons of Bill Torrey have not made it back to the SCF since. Hall of Famers Mike Bossy, Denis Potvin, and Billy Smith all finished up their careers in Uniondale, the Islanders getting zippo in return.
⋅ The Oilers barreled to five Cups (1984-90), four of those with Wayne Gretzky in his prime, and then appeared in only one SCF (2006) before their back-to-back losses to the Panthers.
How is this Bruins team different from any other Bruins team? The big names we’ve known so well, names that meant so much for so long, have become part of the past.
It is always the future that sells, and we’ll find out beginning Wednesday if Bruins fans are buying.
Kevin Paul Dupont can be reached at kevin.dupont@globe.com.