Eastern Conference: Northeast

KEY ADDITIONS G Manny Fernandez, LW�Peter Schaefer, RW Shawn Thornton

KEY LOSSES RW Shean Donovan, G�Hannu Toivonen

The Bruins, to put it mildly, were a mess last season, an uninspired bunch with a passive coach ( Dave Lewis) and a rookie G.M. ( Peter Chiarelli) who made moves for the sake of making moves. Yet despite a wildly inconsistent season and the seeming regression of several young players, it inexplicably took Chiarelli more than two months before he fired Lewis and brought in Claude Julien--who himself had been axed by the Devils with a week left in the regular season.

Julien had a combined 121-86-17 record with Montreal and New Jersey and is expected to light a fire--"He demands execution," Chiarelli says--under a team that has most of its roster returning. The one significant change is the addition of goalie Manny Fernandez, who should keep the Bruins in games while their younger players develop. They also need 6' 9" defenseman Zdeno Chara to be the physical force he was when he played in Ottawa. But even in the best-case scenario, Boston will go another spring without seeing the postseason.