The Bruins' No. 1 rival is obviously always the Canadiens. In recent years, you could make the argument for the Maple Leafs being No. 2 given the teams' three seven-game playoff battles (all won by the Bruins) in the past decade.
It's possible Boston won't see much, if any, of Montreal or Toronto next season, though.
In a recent radio interview with KSHP in Las Vegas, Golden Knights owner Bill Foley, while answering a question about trading Nate Schmidt to divisional rival Vancouver, let slip that the league is apparently considering breaking up the current division structure for one year and having an all-Canadian division for the 2020-21 season.
"They're going to play in the Canadian Division this year," Foley said.
This would be done because of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and how it has affected travel between the United States and Canada.
The border remains shut down, and if it still is when next season starts, the NHL could run into the same issues that Major League Baseball and Major League Soccer have.
"I don't think that border's going to be open before January 1st," Foley said. "I really don't. Cause Canada's got spikes going on, they're starting to lock down again. Winnipeg's locking down. Quebec has got spikes going down. I think they're going to play in a Canadian division. I don't think they're going to cross the border."
Vegas Hockey Hotline - Exclusive Bill Foley Interview https://t.co/EbpzlqkJz6
— KSHP Radio Las Vegas (@KSHPVegas) October 14, 2020
While the Canadian government did approve the NHL's bubble plan in Toronto and Edmonton for the Stanley Cup Playoffs since that was just one-time travel, it has not approved ongoing back-and-forth travel for any teams.
The Toronto Blue Jays had to play in Buffalo this MLB season, and MLS' Montreal Impact, Toronto FC and Vancouver Whitecaps are all playing the remainder of their "home" games this season in the U.S. Prior to moving to their U.S. bases, those three teams played their games against each other in Canada.
The NHL is currently split into four divisions -- three with eight teams and one with seven. If they went the "Canadian division" route, that could become the seven-team division (Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver), and the remaining 24 American teams could be reconfigured into three new-look eight-team divisions.
It's unclear exactly how the schedule would work under such a scenario. It seems unlikely that an entire 82-game regular season would just be divisional play, but it's possible the number of games against each divisional opponent could increase from the current four in order to maximize the amount of time the Canadian teams could stay in Canada.
Those games could also be frontloaded in the schedule in the hopes that the pandemic and travel situation would improve as the season goes on.
The NHL announced that it is targeting a Jan. 1 start date, but Foley said he is skeptical that will actually happen since teams won't want to play until they can have fans back in arenas.
"If we're not playing in front of fans, I don't know how a lot of teams can make it — including us. It's going to be very difficult," Foley said. "You've got to make a serious financial commitment to fund the team if we're not playing in front of fans. I believe Gary Bettman's not going to be having us fly all around and play in empty arenas. It's going to be another plan.
"He's talking about January 1st, I don't know. Maybe February 1st. Maybe an abbreviated season, and an accelerated season."
