Bruins’ rollercoaster season emblematic of East’s wild 2025-26

It’s been a tumultuous NHL campaign out east.

Midway through the 2025-26 season, the league’s Eastern Conference seems nearly just as muddied as it did through the first quarter, with seven potential wild-card clubs still sitting within a handful of points, and few certainties in the standings above them.

But there might not be any club in the conference riding as tumultuous a wave as the Boston Bruins. The Massachusetts squad has been emblematic of the topsy-turvy year we’ve seen in the East, looking at times like a team destined for the conference basement, at others like the Presidents’ Trophy-winning B’s who used to dominate the league.

And this past weekend marked a particularly wild stretch of hockey for Marco Sturm’s club. 

On Saturday, the Bruins turned in a dominant, high-octane shellacking of the New York Rangers, taking down the Blueshirts 10-2 under the TD Garden lights. The offensive outburst ranked as the franchise’s most prolific showing in nearly 40 years, their first 10-goal game since 1988. But even more unexpected than the 10-spot was how Boston found its way to that scoreline.

Leading the charge Saturday was 23-year-old Marat Khusnutdinov, a second-round pick of the Minnesota Wild in 2020, traded to Boston last March in a deal that sent Justin Brazeau (now with the Pittsburgh Penguins) to the Wild. Heading into this weekend’s meeting with the Rangers, Khusnutdinov had never posted a multi-goal or multi-point game at the NHL level — Saturday night, he exploded for the finest offensive performance of his big-league career, amassing four goals and an assist.

In one game, the winger nearly tied his output from all of last season, Khusnutdinov having posted five goals over 75 games last year split between the Bruins and Wild. He’s now up to nine goals and 20 points on the season, both totals career highs by a mile.

Khusnutdinov became the eighth player in the expansion era to score four goals in a game having never posted a multi-goal game previously. The most recent before him? Auston Matthews in his NHL debut, and a rookie Sam Bennett, both in 2016.

But Khusnutdinov was only part of the chaos. There was also Pavel Zacha — whose name has made the rounds through the rumour mill for some time — scoring thrice for his first career hat trick (including a particularly odd second goal). With the trick in tow, he and Khusnutdinov became the first Bruins teammates to record hat tricks in the same game at home, and the first two to record a hat trick in the same game at all in nearly 60 years. The pair also became the first teammates to record their first career hat tricks in the same game since Pascal Dupuis and Petr Sykora managed the feat in 2008 for the Penguins.

And then there was David Pastrnak, Boston’s premier offensive dynamo. Not to be left behind, No. 88 chipped in with a career-best six-point night, registering six helpers on the evening. He became the first Bruin to tally six points since Ray Bourque did it 36 years ago. Fraser Minten scored two as well, and Charlie McAvoy’s goal rounded out the 10-spot.

Perhaps just as odd as Boston pulling out 10 goals against the Rangers was the fact that, one night later, fresh off that offensive display, they scored just once. 

What’s more, it wasn’t any of Khusnutdinov, Zacha, Minten or McAvoy who tallied in Sunday’s follow-up, and Pastrnak was held pointless — instead, it was Viktor Arvidsson scoring the Bruins’ only goal. Still, they earned the win, Boston’s lone goal Sunday against the Pittsburgh Penguins coming in the B’s first shutout win of the season. 

The wild two-game stretch is a microcosm of what’s been a wacky, uneven season for the Bruins overall. 

After missing the post-season last year for the first time in nearly a decade, a rough start to 2025-26 had the club looking destined for more misery. Then came the rollercoaster. At the end of October, they sat outside the playoff race, reeling from a six-game losing streak. At the end of November, they sat second in the Atlantic Division, enjoying the spoils of a seven-game win streak. At the end of December? Back on the outside, sunk by yet another six-game losing streak.

And now, in mid-January, the B’s have found life again. With this weekend’s wins in the bag, they’ve now won three in a row, and five of their past six, moving them back into the thick of the wild-card race — Boston sits tied with the two wild-card clubs, Buffalo and Washington, at 52 points.

Where they wind up by the end of the month, or the end of the season, seems as unpredictable as the conference as a whole. But their recent surge surely makes life tougher for the other clubs hunting for those wild-card slots. Right behind Boston sits Toronto, which is trying to ride its own recent surge back into the playoff mix. Pittsburgh’s own up-and-down campaign has it right there too, level with the Maple Leafs. Behind them sits the defending-champion Florida Panthers, and only a handful of points behind the Cats are the Devils and Rangers.

Heading into the campaign’s back half, much of the East’s playoff picture still seems very much up for grabs. And the recipe for success might simply be finding some semblance of consistency and out-waiting the rollercoaster crowd.

Weekend Takeaways

• Macklin Celebrini’s meteoric ascent continued as his San Jose Sharks split a pair of tough matchups with two of the NHL’s best. Saturday night, the Sharks went toe-to-toe with the league’s No. 2 behemoth, the Dallas Stars, pulling out the overtime win. Celebrini recorded three assists, taking his season total to 70 points.

In doing so, he became the third-fastest teenager to reach that sum in one season, doing it in 44 games — trailing only Wayne Gretzky (40 games in 1980-81) and Sidney Crosby (43 games in 2006-07). Celebrini also extended his points streak to 13 games, becoming the third teenager to amass 26 points over a 13-game span — the others, of course, were Gretzky and Crosby — and factored into his 12th game-winning goal of the season, tying reigning Art Ross winner Nikita Kucherov in that category. Although San Jose came up short against Vegas on Sunday, it remains third in the Pacific, looking firmly on track for a return to the post-season.

• The Maple Leafs reeled off a dominant 5-0 win over the Canucks on Saturday, their third straight victory and the ninth straight game in which they’ve collected a much-needed point. But the most interesting aspect of this resurgence has been their resuscitated power play.

On Dec. 23, the club parted ways with assistant coach Marc Savard, who had been tabbed with running the man-advantage. At that time, Toronto ranked dead last in the league with a 13.3 per cent success rate. On Dec. 27, the Leafs brought in Steve Sullivan to take over power-play. The 16-year NHL vet put early tweaks in place, shifting the club’s scorers to different positions and simplifying tactics. In his first game behind the bench, the Maple Leafs scored twice on the power play. They tallied a power-play goal in each of the next three games, too. Saturday, against the Canucks, they fired in two more.

Since Sullivan joined the fold, the Maple Leafs’ power play has been humming at 38.9 per cent — going 7-for-18, with zero shorthanded goals-against — good for tops in the league.

Red and White Power Rankings

1. Montreal Canadiens (25-14-6): A tough shutout loss to the Atlantic-rival Detroit Red Wings Saturday slowed the Habs after a three-game win streak that included victories over the Stars and the defending-champion Cats. Still, they’ve claimed points in eight of their past 10 games, and remain the highest-ranked Canadian club by a hefty distance. A meeting with Vancouver at home Monday offers a good chance to return to the win column.

2. Edmonton Oilers (22-16-7): Like Montreal, a Saturday-night loss to a division rival was a setback after a week of quality wins. But the Oilers still took a point out of their shootout loss to L.A., and the late tying goal from Connor McDavid that allowed them to earn that point extended the captain’s point streak to an absurd 18 games and 42 points. There are wrinkles to iron out, but Edmonton still sits second in the Pacific, and ranks as the only other Canadian team in a playoff spot at the moment.

3. Toronto Maple Leafs (22-15-7): After looking destined for misery for much of the campaign, the Maple Leafs have found some life. Saturday’s impressive victory moved Toronto into the most productive stretch of the Craig Berube era — its nine-game streak of point-collecting ranks as the longest such stretch since 2023-24. The Leafs are still on the outside looking in when it comes to the post-season, but after being last in the East just a couple months ago, a return to the playoff picture seems possible again.

4. Calgary Flames (19-22-4): It might not be the what the Flames faithful were hoping for given the potential to claim a lottery pick this season, but a 2-1 win over Sidney Crosby’s Penguins helped Calgary snap a four-game losing streak that started its new year. The Flames’ first win of 2026 was spurred by goals from youngsters Connor Zary and Matt Coronato. Up next comes a reunion with Sean Monahan as they continue their road trip with a tilt against Columbus on Tuesday.

5. Winnipeg Jets (17-22-5): After a miserable 11-game losing streak that lasted nearly a month, the Jets have managed to stop the bleeding. A statement win against L.A. on Friday was followed up with 4-3 victory over New Jersey on Sunday. They’ll have to keep stringing them together if they hope to truly flip the script this season, as the 2025 Presidents’ Trophy winners remain mired in the West’s basement. They’ll meet the Islanders next, before getting another shot at two clubs who beat them during that lengthy losing streak: Minnesota on Thursday, and Toronto next Saturday.

6. Ottawa Senators (20-19-5): The Senators have similarly struggled to match the highs of 2024-25 — after a triumphant return to the post-season last year, and a quality effort in Round 1 against Toronto, Ottawa sits well out of the playoff picture at the moment. A loss to Florida on Saturday didn’t help. The Sens have now dropped four straight, and seven of their past nine.

7. Vancouver Canucks (16-23-5): It’s gone from bad to worse for the Canucks. After losing 5-3 to Buffalo last Tuesday, Vancouver fell 5-1 to Detroit on Thursday and then 5-0 to Toronto on Saturday in what’s been an abysmal road trip. The most recent drubbing moves the Canucks to six straight losses, and eight losses in their past nine games. Making matters worse, after the Jets managed a couple recent wins, the Canucks are 32nd of 32 clubs.

The Week Ahead

• Mitch Marner will face his former team when the Maple Leafs visit Las Vegas on Thursday. It’ll be the first time the long-time Leaf will play against his boyhood club, a first taste of the odd experience before Marner returns to Scotiabank Arena on Jan. 23 for what’s sure to be an emotional first game as a visitor in his old barn. The former Leaf, who spent 10 years in blue and white, has 46 points through 43 games in his first season as a Golden Knight (two more than the Leafs’ leading scorer, William Nylander).

• Monday will mark the introduction of the new-look Hughes Bowl, with Quinn Hughes’ Minnesota Wild taking on Jack and Luke Hughes’ Devils in New Jersey, the first time the brothers will play against each other since Quinn was traded by Vancouver to Minnesota. But the siblings meet each other amid wildly different circumstances for their franchises. The Wild ride into Jersey as the third-best club in the West, a bona fide contender, Quinn having collected 16 points in 14 games since joining the squad. The Devils, meanwhile, have lost four straight and sit well outside a wild-card spot, with both Jack and Luke enduring their fair share of tumult this season.

• All seven Canadian teams will be in action Saturday as the Scotiabank Hockey Day in Canada festivities kick off in Moncton, New Brunswick. The schedule features three all-Canadian matchups — Maple Leafs vs. Jets, Canadiens vs. Senators and Oilers vs. Canucks — while the Flames will take on blue-line phenom Matthew Schaefer and the Islanders.