I used to be like you. I once said I’m not getting back on the Bruins bandwagon until they do something in the playoffs. Win a round. Prove you deserve to be taken seriously. Until then, I'm not paying attention. 

So I've caved. I watched a few games early on, saw the high level the team was playing at and was sucked back in. They’ve been great. I’ve enjoyed it. Sue me.

The Bruins limped into the all-star break last night with a 4-3 shootout win at woeful Toronto behind an injury-ravaged lineup, but that uneven performance doesn’t take away from what’s been an incredible first half. The B’s lead the Eastern Conference by 10 points and are tied with San Jose for the most points in the NHL with 73. They have played 47 games and lost just eight of them in regulation. They’ve scored. They’ve skated. They’ve fought. They’ve stood up for each other. They’ve gotten goaltending not just from one guy, but from two. You can count the number of bad losses they've had on two fingers. They've been a pleasure to watch.

But it hasn’t taken long for my enthusiasm to be followed by an immediate fear: At the end of the day, why will this year be any different than the rest? The Bruins have had some excellent regular seasons recently (first in the Eastern Conference in 2001-2002; second in the conference in 2003-04) and they still couldn't get out of the first round. They’ve put up some good numbers before and yet they’ve won a grand total of one playoff series in 15 years (vs. Carolina in 1999). That's a 1-8 record in the postseason since they moved into the new Garden. I'm having a hard time getting over that number.

So, again, what makes this year different?

The short answer, ideally, is that this team is a heck of a lot better than the rest, on both ends of the ice. Yes, the B's from 2001-2004 made the playoffs three straight years and were at the top of the conference in two of those seasons, but I don't remember them looking this good. Those teams had Joe Thornton, but this one has a lot more going for it. To be more specific:

SKILL

I think the Bruins have shown as much touch, skill and scoring ability up front this year as any Bruins team since the 70's. Is that an exaggeration? Maybe. But they certainly have more scoring options than those ‘01-04 editions. The B's have scored the most goals in the Eastern Conference (167) and are on pace to score 291 for the year, which would be the franchise's highest tally since 1992-93. By comparison, the B's scored 236 goals in '01-02 when they finished first in the conference and had just 209 when they finished second in '03-04. And the current scoring pace certainly stacks up against the last B's Stanley Cup finals teams in 1988 (300 goals) and 1990 (289). 
 
What makes the B's scoring ability so impressive is that it has come from so many different places. They currently have six players on pace to score 20 goals (Phil Kessel, David Krejci, Michael Ryder, Marc Savard, Blake Wheeler and Milan Lucic). When healthy, Patrice Bergeron is also a 20-goal scorer (he had 31 in '05-06), which brings the number to seven if he returns to form. Zdeno Chara is on pace for 19; he’s got a shot to make it eight. (Marco Sturm would have made it nine). By comparison, the '01-02 team had five 20-goal guys and the '03-04 unit had just three. 

The emergence of centerman Krejci has been the key. Between him and Savard, the B's are able to roll out two dangerous lines a night. The last time the B's won the East, Jozef Stumpel was their No. 2 center. Enough said.

Beyond the numbers, the B’s have also passed the eye-ball test. They’ve scored some goals this year that were so pretty I've had to stop the DVR and go back to make sure that those were really the Bruins I just saw. So far, the replays have stood up. The power play is the third-best in hockey (25 percent). Savard is an elite talent. Krejci isn't far behind. Ryder has regained his scoring touch. Wheeler (tied for the NHL rookie lead in goals with 14) is pretty good. So is Lucic. Kessel (on pace for nearly 50 goals before the mono) has the best shot on the team. And the assumed return of Bergeron will only add to the scoring depth. I doubted it at first, but at this point I think I have to accept the fact that the B’s can score.

COACHING

Let’s not put Claude Julien in the Hall of Fame just yet; the B's emergence has been as much about personnel as scheme. But when you compare him to what the B's trotted out earlier this decade, it's really no comparison.

The '01-02 Bruins were led by Robbie Ftorek (barf). The '02-03 squad saw Mike O’Connell come down from the front office to lead it into a first-round series against the Devils and Pat Burns (a coaching mismatch of epic proportions). In '03-04 it was Mike Sullivan (not atrocious, just not very good) leading the way.

Julien appears to be a serious upgrade. He's installed a defensive system that has worked for two years running (see numbers below). Several young players have developed quickly under his tutelage (Kessel, Krejci, Lucic, Dennis Wideman, etc). He's shown the willingness to mix things up (breaking up the Kessel-Savard-Lucic line in December). He’s been the package so far, from player development to X’s and O’s.

By far the most important thing he’s done, in my opinion, is teach the B’s how to play in their own end. If we learned anything from Burns (the best B’s coach since Don Cherry) it’s that the most important stat in hockey is goals against, even these days when the rules have been relaxed and the game opened up. The B’s have allowed the fewest goals in hockey this season (106) and are on pace to allow a paltry 185 on the year. In Julien’s first season, the B’s finished in the middle of the pack with 222 goals allowed, but that was a full 77 goals fewer than the season before. So the trend is clear. Julien made the B’s a good defensive team and they continue to get better. 

Yes, Julien has some weird firings on his resume. He was canned in Montreal despite leading the Habs into the second round of the playoffs in his only full season there. He was let go by New Jersey at the end of a season in which he led the Devils to a 107-point, first-place finish. Devils GM Lou Lamoriello has a history of doing such things, so maybe that one wasn’t on Julien. But you’ve got to wonder if there was a common denominator between the two stops. Julien’s only playoff win came over the Bruins in ’03-04, which, as we’ve established, was no great feat.

So some questions remain. But compared to the other one-and-done coaches the Bruins have suffered through, Julien is Scotty freaking Bowman. 

TOUGHNESS

The Bruins this decade have been lacking a lot of things, and fortitude is definitely one of them. This includes both the way they’ve played on the ice and faced pressure off it. There are no better examples than what happened the last two times they finished at or near the top of the Eastern Conference.

In 2002, the B’s were en route to a big win at Montreal in Game 4 of their first-round playoff series, a win that would tie it at two games apiece heading back to Boston. With minutes remaining in a three-goal game, B’s defenseman Kyle McLaren laid out Montreal flopper (aren’t they all?) Richard Zednik with a hard but questionable hit. McLaren may have gotten some elbow in there, but Zednick’s reaction (equipment flying, minutes prone on the ice) certainly dramatized the play. The Canadiens were incensed (aren’t they always?), their fans were appalled (ditto) and the league responded with a three-game suspension for McLaren. The Habs vowed revenge. Fast forward to Game 5 at the FleetCenter. The expectation was that the Habs would attempt to take out one of the B’s stars. War drums were sounding. How would be the B’s respond? We soon got our answer. Instead of opening the game with his bruisers and sending the message to the Habs that the hits would keep coming, Ftorek opened the game with his scoring line, which featured weak-kneed Bill Guerin. The message to Montreal was clear: No more rough stuff. We’ll lay off. And so they did. The B’s didn’t hit anyone all game, and they tip-toed their way through the rest of the series, scoring just once in Game 5 and once more in Game 6 to fall to the Canadiens.

It was no less frustrating in 2004, when the B’s bolted out to a 3-1 series lead after a dramatic double-overtime win in Game 4 in Montreal. The B’s won that one when another Montreal flopper, Alexei Kovalev, tried to draw a penalty by faking a wrist injury and Glen Murray pounced on the opening to pot the game-winner. Should have been a huge momentum-builder, right? Wrong. Instead, it was Saku Koivu who got the Canadiens together and circled the wagons. While injured B’s captain Thornton was going scoreless and Sullivan stood by and watched, Montreal throttled the B’s in Boston in Game 5 and then cruised to the series win. And “cruised” is the operative word. The Bruins did nothing to stop them. The B’s couldn’t even manage a goal against Jose Theodore in Game 7 at home.

There’s plenty of reason to believe this Bruins team is different. Maybe much different. Remember, the Bruins were the ones last year who came back against the Habs in the playoffs as a No. 8 seed and nearly pulled off the upset. The Bruins were the ones who erased three separate deficits and scored four third-period goals in that epic Game 6 at the Garden. And, this year, they’ve shown a tremendous amount of fight. Savard jumped in to defend Lucic after Lucic got run by the Dallas Stars in November. Chara came to Kessel’s defense against Atlanta behemoth Boris Valabik in December. Goalie Tim Thomas dropped Andrei Kostitsyn after the Canadiens agitator boarded Aaron Ward in January. To recap: the B’s have had their top center step in for their power forward, their captain step in for their top scorer and their goalie step in for one of their top defensemen. 

I could be wrong, but I don’t remember the Joe Thornton Bruins doing that. Which leads me to….

THE CAPTAINCY

Chara is not exactly a decorated postseason performer, but he has won four series in his career and was a part of an Ottawa Senators team that made it to Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals 2002-2003. That’s a significantly better track record than the one Thornton had here. In five trips to the postseason, Thornton and the B’s were only able to get past the Hurricanes in 1999, and that was well before big Joe emerged as the team’s top player. When Thornton later came of age and was expected to lead them in the postseason, he couldn’t. His injury-aided, zero-goal, zero-assist, seven-game series against the Habs in 2004 was his Bruins epitaph. He finished his Bruins tenure as well under a point-a-game guy in the playoffs (18 points in 35 games), but more importantly, he never carried the team. He never led.

Chara seems more willing to be that guy, whether it's through physical play in his end or by jumping into the offense. He’ll whack someone when necessary. I think he’s the B’s most indispensable player, and something tells me he’s a better bet than Thornton was to carry his level of play from the regular season into the playoffs.

ORGANIZATIONAL DRIFT

An intangible, to be sure, but the entire Bruins franchise seems to be enjoying some actual, honest-to-goodness momentum right now. It’s been a long time since we’ve been able to say that. Much of the organization has turned over (not the owner, unfortunately), and that can only be a good thing. Back in 2001-2004, Harry Sinden was still around as team president, O'Connell was his underling and Jeremy Jacobs still didn't realize how far his hockey operation had deteriorated or how many fans his ownership had alienated. Now, after hitting rock bottom following the lockout, Jacobs apparently has a clue. The old guard has been flushed out. There's no more Harry, no more Mike. Charlie Jacobs spends most his time in Boston, not Buffalo. Look up in the box during games and you’ll see Neely pumping his fists. Don Sweeney is in player development. The place just feels different.

It’s debatable how much that will impact what happens on the ice, but there's something about the overall direction that feels better. A few new voices. A different atmosphere. A few more people who actually give a rat’s ass about winning. It’s made a difference. Wheeler, for example, could have gone to any number of teams across the league as a free agent, but he chose the Bruins because he liked what they had in place and, more importantly, their direction. That would never have happened five years ago. I once ran into Thornton's brother at a convenience store in Boston. I asked him how Joe was doing. “Hates it here,” said the bro. “Just the worst. Can't wait to get out.''

So now the B's are starting to become a destination again, and they’re building something. Maybe that will trickle down to the players and they'll recognize what they have the opportunity to do, which is put hockey back on the map in Boston.

There are still reasons to temper your optimism, to be sure. Injuries, of course, are the biggest factor. The B’s haven’t looked quite so hot recently, and the missing bodies are a huge reason why. Bergeron would be a great start to a third line, but without him the team will be hard pressed to score outside the Savard and Krejci units. Without Lucic, there goes most of your toughness and attitude up front. Without Kessel, there goes your top scorer and best speed threat. If anything happened to Chara it'd be all over. Aaron Ward, Dennis Wideman and Andrew Ference need to be there to fill out the defense. But for now, let’s go under the assumption that Sturm will be the one big loss. The B’s can survive that.

I also think goaltending is still a question mark. Yes, Thomas and Manny Fernandez have been very good, but don’t we need to see that in the postseason to be assured? As it stands now, I don’t know if the goaltending is appreciably better than it was in 2002 with Byron Dafoe or 2004 with Andrew Raycroft. It’s certainly more stable than what the B’s put out there in 2003 between Jeff Hackett and Steve Shields, but that’s about it. Thomas has played in one postseason series in his career and lost it. Fernandez has won one playoff round in the NHL. Both are 34. That’s a lot of hockey and not much postseason success to show for it. In this case, I AM going to need to see one of those guys win a round before I get on their bandwagon.

The final question is whether the front office will make a move at the trading deadline. How truly different are the B’s in the 21st century? We’ll find out by March 4. The pre-strike Bruins were notoriously slow on the trigger finger and tight with the wallet when it came to adding final pieces. The one exception came in 2004 when O'Connell swung a great deal with Washington and got Michael Nylander and defenseman Sergei Gonchar from the Capitals (best move O’Connell ever made, in my opinion). What will their appetite be this time around? We'll see. 

As for the Bruins in the playoffs, I know what my appetite is.

Ravenous.