The Boston Bruins are heading back to the 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs with a drastically different roster than the one they had for the 2024 Playoffs.
Yes, some experience from the past cores remains in Charlie McAvoy and David Pastrnak.
The last playoff game the Bruins had in of May 2024 featured 18 skaters and 1 goalie, the usual fare.
Just seven of those 18 skaters remain. The goalie, Jeremy Swayman, remains the same.
Pastrnak, McAvoy, Hampus Lindholm, Mason Lohrei, Pavel Zacha, Morgan Geekie, and Andrew Peeke are the sole remaining pieces of the 2024 roster.
The playoffs will be a new experience for this group. Yes, some of the new acquisitions such as Nikita Zadorov, Tanner Jeannot, and Elias Lindholm, have extensive playoff experience.
Heck, Sean Kuraly wasn't in Boston in 2024, but he's played 57 playoff games with the Bruins in his career. It's not new to him.
Someone new to it is one of Boston's most consistent players all year, Mark Kastelic.
The Bruins acquired Kastelic as a part of the Linus Ullmark trade to the Ottawa Senators in the summer of 2024, with Kastelic almost being looked over in the deal by some at the time.
He wasn't looked over by Bruins General Manager Don Sweeney and his staff, who thought he could become a key piece for Boston's bottom-six.
This year, his second with Boston, Kastelic set career highs in goals, assists, points, shots, ice time, face-off percentage, you get the picture. By any metric, it's been a career year for Kastelic.
Sweeney heaped praise on Kastelic at his end-of-regular-season presser on Thursday.
"Yeah, I was really happy for Mark to get to double digits [goals] the other day, and then that line was really, really good in both [final] games, but they've been an important part."
Sweeney then looked back to the March 29 win against the Columbus Blue Jackets, where the Bruins erased a 3-0 deficit en route to solidifying a playoff spot.
Down 3-0, Tanner Jeannot dropped the gloves with Erik Gudbrandson. Six seconds later, Columbus' toughest and one of the NHL's premier fighters, Mathieu Olivier wanted a piece of Kastelic.
Kastelic, smaller than Olivier, did not back done.
The Bruins rallied around the fight, and then came back to win 4-3.
"In the comeback in Columbus, Tanner set the stage, but that's a tough spot for another player of Mark's ilk to know what's coming next in all likelihood [the fight with Olivier], and for him to meet that challenge without even thinking about it, it just permeates through the whole group.
And afterward, [the team giving him] the belt and being acknowledged for that, it says a lot about him and his character and what he means to our team, and what he means to the guys, what he means each morning to everyone."
The effusive praise from Sweeney to Kastelic is beyond well-earned. Game 1 will mark Kastelic's first-career NHL playoff game.
It's the first playoff game of any kind for him since two 2022 AHL Playoff games with the Belleville Senators, as a teammate of Jonathan Aspirot's.
Kastelic spoke exclusively with The Hockey News about it.
"Everything's so exciting and fun," Kastelic told The Hockey News. "Just the build-up and all that. [Those AHL Playoff games came] A while ago now, but I just remember, like, just it being the most fun I've had playing hockey, win or lose.
"Obviously, we want to win, and we have our goal at the end of the day, but to have this opportunity, it's amazing. I'm really looking forward to just see what we can do with it."
Kastelic's hands will be full all series against the Buffalo Sabres, whether it's dealing with the top-end guys like 6'7 Tage Thompson, or the fourth line with 6'6 Jordan Greenway. Buffalo's known for playing physical, hard, and fast.
It's a matchup Kastelic knows will be tough, but he's confident in his team.
"They've got some guys over there, but very confident in our abilities," Kastelic told THN. "I really like what we bring to the table.
"It's going to be probably a great battle, an intense battle, and that's right up our alley. So it should be really fun, and I can't wait to get after it."