For most of the past several years, Bruins fans could pretty much assume two things as a new NHL season got under way:
1. The B’s were going to be a solid, winning team, a virtual lock to make the playoffs and perhaps an elite-level club that could compete for the Stanley Cup.
2. There would always be a fairly large number of Eastern Conference teams that wouldn’t be very good, teams the B’s could expect to defeat with regularity.
Well, as the 2015-16 season opens for the Bruins tonight at the Garden against the Winnipeg Jets, neither of those presumptions holds true anymore.