Despite this heartbreaking loss, I think we're witnessing a renaissance here with the Bruins. I feel that they proven that they can now compete with the elite of the league, and that they will soon be experiencing the success and recognition that the rest of the Boston sports teams are tasting of late.
I feel like the whole picture is now complete, and that the missing piece has been added, (or at least selected), to this puzzle. Nice job, B's ... you're only climbing upward from here on out!
I think they certainly put themselves back in the conscious of Boston sports fans, but they still have a long way to go. There is still so much cynicism left, that really has a long way to go in order to be truly broken away. They will not truly be back until they either win a championship, or Jacobs sells the team. Until then, there will still be a huge portion of their fan base that will not come back completely.
With that said, the future certainly looks bright. Now they just need to realize that they have a little bit of the publics attention, and they need to take advantage of it. They absolutely need to make a splash this summer, and work hard to try to improve the team. The obvious move is to sign Hossa...which would be great. But if they don't do that, they can still make something happen.
They just need to realize that they need to grab the attention when they can. If they do nothing this summer, and come out next year, and are just a 6th or 7th seed in the playoffs, all of the goodwill they got this year will be gone again.