Boston truly loves their sports teams. This year, the Bruins exceeded all expectations and were flirting with first place at the end of the season. They had an excellent second half of the season. After a dismal performance early on, the immense amount of success the team had was pleasantly surprising for fans and the general hockey community.

The B's clinched a playoff spot pretty early and now, expectations were high for this team with a lot of young talent and veterans alike. The last couple weeks for the season were not the greatest, but many still had faith. Some analysts had the Bruins going to the Stanley Cup final round as well.

As round one began against the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Bruins confidently won the first two games. Then, things got a bit tough. They won game four and only needed one more win in this best-of-seven series. However, they lost a couple of games and had to go to game seven where it was win or go home. Thankfully, they won and were moving on to round two against the Tampa Bay Lighting.

Round two was a lot more difficult. Tampa Bay was the number one team in the league and they were going to be a difficult opponent. The Bruins won game one but later fell to Tampa in five games. In addition to some offensive, defensive, and goaltending struggles, the lack of rest between round one and two, injuries, and some extremely questionable goaltending ultimately led to the Bruins' defeat.

Despite being eliminated in round two, the Bruins have such a bright future. Their immense amount of young talent now has some concrete postseason experience under their belt. This is going to be invaluable in the coming years. The team is still extremely close-knit, and this much-needed playoff experience will make them even closer and better.

With captain Zdeno Chara approaching his mid-forties, hopefully next year will be the year when the Bruins can finally hoist the Stanley Cup for the first time since 2011. Another grueling regular season will help the team improve even more and hopefully, be ready to succeed in the postseason next Spring. The fans of the team are more than ready to cheer them on next year and hopefully get to go to a Stanley Cup parade in the streets of Boston.