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 witha 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 Bruinssurpassed 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 playoffsthis year,or to miss them altogether.

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

How the B'scompare 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 with135points in the standings. The closest team, the Carolina Hurricanes, had113.

Put another way, the gap between the Bruinsand 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 andpenalty killing. They hadsixwinning streaks of sixgames 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 Bruinsscored the first goal, they werealmost guaranteed to win, witha43-1-3 record.

• Their goal differential how many more goals they score than give up wasplus-128, almostdouble the next-bestteam(the Dallas Starsat plus-67). The Bruins wereplus-54inthe third period alone.

Bruins' starting goalie also brokerecords

How did the Bruins dominatelike this?

Though they haveHall of Fame sure-thingPatrice Bergeron and 61-goal scorerDavid Pastrk, 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 with10 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,Ullmarkhad:

• 40 wins in 48 starts, among the best win-loss records by a goaltender in one season ever.
• A .938save percentage, tied for fourthbest all-time.
• A 54-save performance against the Calgary Flames. It was a Bruins record, and they won the game.
• Agoal against the Vancouver Canucks. Ullmark isthe first goalie to score in Bruinshistory, and only the eighth NHL goalie ever to do soon 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 theyhadn't thought about any regular season recordsat all, but after they tied the record they began acknowledgingthe historic season.

"It's been a lot of fun, I'm not going to lie," Pastrk 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 biggestleague 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."