Boston Bruins: The Day We Knew It Was Going to Be Alright

This Bruins team is everything that was loveable about the Killer B's of the 70's: They have a collective you're in, or you’re in the way attitude. And I am glad to see the rest of the Bruins fans have seen what a number of us caught onto last year.

You want the day that diehards knew it was going right? Well, for me it was February 26th, 2008.

It was the night Krejci got his first NHL goal. But that's not why I knew.

Boston Bruins general manager Peter Chiarelli, kept his team together at the trading deadline, producing zero trades in the Hub of Hockey. And then he told the players why.

"He said he believed in this team," said Bruins forward David Krejci, who scored his first NHL goal on Tuesday night, to back Tim Thomas's second shutout of the season and help Boston beat the Ottawa Senators 4-0. "He said we have good chemistry on the ice, and that's why he didn't make any trades."

They made a statement that night; they began a hard-nosed magical run to the playoffs. I still remember Julien sending out Shawn Thornton's fourth line to start the game. Not your typical way to start the night, unless you're making a point, which they did. They dominated Spezza, Alfredsson, and Heatley for a solid minute and half.

And they did it again when Thornton scored in the first. It was a new attitude: we're 'badder' than you, we're tougher than you...DEAL WITH IT!

And for the 15-20 games that followed, we sat on the edge of our seats, watching a team, that quite honestly couldn’t score, develop chemistry that was long since gone from the Gardens.

Chiarelli stated, “These are our guys!” And what happened next was quite impressive. A 19-year-old kid, that had fought his way onto the team, started to lead by example. Every night you knew he was going to give you everything he had.

Now he is the pride of Bean town, but then he was the embodiment of what Claude Julien had so subtly said to Ottawa that night, “We are simply tougher than you.”

We’ll hit you, and hit you, and hit you, until somebody quits and it won't be us. That night I watched that Ottawa team quit, on themselves, and on their coach. But I saw a Bruins team that recognized that when they need it most, they will make somebody else say uncle.

Don’t let the flood of goals fool you, that’s a combination of maturity and confidence. And that confidence all started that night in February when Chiarelli said, “He believed in this team."

Within 24 hours that confidence had grown; in a crucial game against a division rival, they made a statement that read loud and clear: The Killer B’s are BACK!!