The Boston Bruins have broken the NHL single-season wins and points records. Here's how they did it

The big, bad Boston Bruins are good — historically, record-breakingly good.

They finished with a better regular-season record than those Wayne Gretzky Oilers teams in the '80s. Better than the 2000s Detroit Red Wings team with 10 future Hall of Famers. Better than Bobby Orr's early-'70s Bruins. 

After a 5-3 win over the Philadelphia Flyers on Sunday, they surpassed the 2018-19 Tampa Bay Lightning and the 1995-96 Detroit Red Wings for the most wins in NHL history, with 63.

And after a 5-2 win over the Washington Capitals on Tuesday, the Bruins surpassed the 1976-77 Montreal Canadiens for most points in a season (though Montreal did it in an 80-game season, not the current 82).

Their 65-12-5 record is a stunning success story for a team that most prognosticators expected to either barely make the playoffs this year, or to miss them altogether.

Here's a look at the stats showing just how good the Bruins were in the regular season and what it means for their Stanley Cup chances. (Spoiler alert: probably nothing.)

How the B's compare to other teams this year

The Bruins have been so dominant this year, you can pick almost any stat and they'll be at or near the top of the league. Let's start with the obvious one: they finished with 135 points in the standings. The closest team, the Carolina Hurricanes, had 113.

Put another way, the gap between the Bruins and the Hurricanes is as large as the gap between No. 2 and the No. 19 Pittsburgh Penguins, who missed the playoffs.

The Bruins led the league in goals against, home record, away record and penalty killing. They had six winning streaks of six games or more and only once lost two regulation-time games in a row.

And when you break down the numbers further, their dominance this season only becomes clearer:

• When the Bruins scored the first goal, they were almost guaranteed to win, with a 43-1-3 record.

• Their goal differential — how many more goals they score than give up — was plus-128, almost double the next-best team (the Dallas Stars at plus-67). The Bruins were plus-54 in the third period alone.

Bruins' starting goalie also broke records

How did the Bruins dominate like this?

Though they have Hall of Fame sure-thing Patrice Bergeron and 61-goal scorer David Pastrňák, the Bruins are less a team of superstars and more a team of remarkable depth.

They arguably have three No. 1 defencemen and two "top" lines, and they have 11 players who finished with 10 goals or more.

Almost every skater has at least met expectations, but to find the player who has most exceeded them, you have to turn to starting goaltender Linus Ullmark.

This season, Ullmark had:

• 40 wins in 48 starts, among the best win-loss records by a goaltender in one season ever.
• A .938 save percentage, tied for fourth best all-time.
• A 54-save performance against the Calgary Flames. It was a Bruins record, and they won the game.
• A goal against the Vancouver Canucks. Ullmark is the first goalie to score in Bruins history, and only the eighth NHL goalie ever to do so on a deliberate shot.  

How other great regular-season teams have fared in the Stanley Cup playoffs

So with this Boston Bruins team dominant from start to finish, a trip to the Stanley Cup final is basically a done deal, right?

About that: In the post-war era, being one of the best NHL teams ever in the regular season has historically had almost no bearing on a team's Stanley Cup chances. Except for one: You will go on to win the Stanley Cup if you are a Montreal Canadiens team from the late 1970s. 

The most recent team that was this dominant, the 2018-19 Tampa Bay Lightning, didn't even win a game in the 2019 playoffs, and were swept in the first round (although they have been to three straight Stanley Cup finals since then).

Putting aside historic dominance, there hasn't even been a first-place team that's won the Cup since 2013.

The Bruins spent most of the season saying they hadn't thought about any regular season records at all, but after they tied the record they began acknowledging the historic season.

"It's been a lot of fun, I'm not going to lie," Pastrňák said after they broke the wins record. "It's been enjoyable, especially the group we have here. We obviously knew the stakes, and it's definitely special to hit it in a game like this. Made history today in the biggest league in hockey."

Coach Jim Montgomery said that trying to win their remaining games can help them stay sharp for what they hope will be a long post-season run.

"Anytime you're talking about putting your team's name — and putting our 'Spoked B' — in the history books of the most wins ever in a regular season, it's special," he said. "Our regular season has been great, but we need to win our last [playoff] game of the season. And that's what we're building towards."