After a slow first couple of months to the 2016-17 season, the Providence Bruins would surprise many around the American Hockey League by staving off a good Bridgeport Sound Tigers team to clinch a spot in the playoffs in the tough Atlantic Division and then navigate their way past the Macgregor Kilpatrick Trophy-winning Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins and then the reigning Eastern Conference Champion Hershey Bears — coming from behind in both series — to reach the Eastern Conference Finals. It was there that the P-Bruins would fall to the Syracuse Crunch in five games.
The unexpected postseason run and the rapid development in the some of the younger talent in the system not only has fans and the front office of the big club excited, but those of Providence as well.