Stanley Cup Playoffs postcard: Boston, Massachusetts

NHL.com writers will be sending postcards from the eight first-round series in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Today, staff writer Amalie Benjamin checks in from Boston, Massachusetts:

BOSTON -- It starts with the videos, with the odes to Bruins past and present, a nod to the 100 years of Bruins hockey being celebrated this season. There is David Pastrnak. There is Zdeno Chara. There is Bobby Orr.

Then come the flags, one black with the name of each player on the current team, one gold with the names of those with retired numbers. They flap from the 300-level, some quickly, some slowly, as music blasts through TD Garden.

The cheers swell through the arena, the chants of “Let’s Go, Bruins,” silenced only by more hype videos, by the threads of the past being shown on the video screen again. And it’s this silence that makes the noise that rises after the fan banner captain is revealed seem even louder.

The hints appear on the video board, a few chances for those in attendance to guess the honorary fan banner captain, whose identity has been kept a secret. Then it appears, on the scoreboard and on the ice, No. 16, Derek Sanderson.

And then there he is, Sanderson, a veteran of nine years in Boston with two Stanley Cup wins, in 1970 and 1972. He stands at the Zamboni entrance, waving the flag high above his head as spotlights ricochet around the rink, as the Bruins Centennial flag is handed around the lower bowl, hand to hand and row to row.

It was not the first time Sanderson has served as the team’s fan banner captain. He appeared alongside Orr, with whom he connected on the goal that won the 1970 Stanley Cup for the Bruins, and a Special Olympian, ahead of Game 5 of the 2019 Stanley Cup Final against the St. Louis Blues. The Bruins would lose that game, 2-1.

The moment is brief, a minute of flag waving, but it sets the stage for the game that is to follow, for the Bruins and the Toronto Maple Leafs, for the hopes of a series-ending win and a trip to the Eastern Conference Second Round, which is on the line in this Game 5. The Bruins are leading the series 3-1 and Sanderson is waving the flag and it’s hockey night in Boston and the crowd is, simply, ready.

They are ready for playoff hockey. Ready for a Bruins win. Game on.