For the small but vocal subset of Bruins fans who were hoping their team tanked this season and joined the chase for top prospects Gavin McKenna or Keaton Verhoeff, we have some heartbreaking news for you.

The Bruins might actually be pretty good.

Don’t get me wrong. It would be wise to hold back a piece of your heart before throwing it all on the bandwagon.

Every game in this current seven-game win streak that has them at 11-7 has been a battle – even Tuesday’s 5-3 win over Toronto when the Maple Leafs looked disinterested to start and then lost Auston Matthews in the middle of the game. Three of their seven wins have gone to extra time. They are about to embark on one of their toughest stretches of the season – road games in Ottawa on Thursday and Montreal on Saturday, a home contest against Carolina on Monday and then a four-game roadie against the three very tough California teams before finishing up with a game on Long Island on Thanksgiving eve.

And here’s one more cautionary tale. The Buffalo Sabres, mired in a 14-year playoff drought, once ripped off a 10-game win streak in November 2018. Then they went right back to being the Sabres.

But with all those Nervous Nelly qualifications being pointed out, it’s hard not to think this Bruins team will be very much in playoff contention all season long.

There are several reasons for this. But the main underlying one is competitiveness. The “piss and vinegar” that team president Cam Neely talked about in the brass’ preseason presser has risen to the top during this current win streak. It was never more evident than on Tuesday at the Garden. The B’s had beaten the Maple Leafs on Saturday, snapping Toronto’s three-game win streak, and then the Leafs lost to Carolina on Sunday. You would have figured Toronto would at least start strong on Tuesday, right? Wrong. They looked like so many teams who showed up at the old Garden years ago and wanted no part of the physically opposing team across from them. Yes, the lousy goaltending they got didn’t help team, but the B’s were all over them in the early going.

Nikita Zadorov (fourth in the league in hits with 65) has been an absolute handful this season from a physical standpoint while Mark Kastelic, Tanner Jeannot and Sean Kuraly have all brought their own forms of edge to the table. And the best news? It’s spreading. When Toronto’s Bobby McMann caught Hampus Lindholm with a dangerous late hit in the third period, the first player into the fray was the B’s current first-line center, 5-foot-11 Marat Khusnutdinov.

“The nice part about our team right now is if one guy says something from the other team, we have the whole bench standing up,” said coach Marco Sturm on Tuesday. “They can play that game, but we will be prepared for that, that’s for sure.”

GM Don Sweeney’s top goal for 2025-26 B’s was to make sure they were no longer the “easy out” they were last year. It looks like that’s accomplished. What no one saw coming, not even Sweeney, was the rate at which they’re scoring goals. Going into Wednesday’s games, the B’s were ranked sixth in the league at 3.39 goals per game.

Zadorov has not only been the epitome of the Big, Bad Bruin, but since being paired with Charlie McAvoy – first in the win over the Colorado Avalanche (the B’s are still the only team to notch a regulation win over the Rocky Mountain juggernaut) and then at the start of the current win streak – he’s allowed McAvoy to be his best self (the turnover on Steven Lorentz shorthanded goal notwithstanding). Though he’s still looking for his first goal, McAvoy leads the team in assists with 14, including six in his last four games.

Morgan Geekie, who leads the team in goals with 11, is showing that his 33-goal season last year was no fluke. Everyone else is chipping in. McAvoy, Andrew Peeke, Henri Jokiharju are the only regulars still looking for their first goals.

But it is clear that the straw that stirs the drink, as Reggie Jackson would say, is David Pastrnak. That much was clear when the entire bench emptied to congratulate him on his 400th goal, a great milestone but maybe not quite a stop-the-game kind of plateau. Special players bring that out in others.

Pastrnak, who leads the team in points (10-12-22), may not be everyone’s idea of a leader, especially for a buttoned-down organization like the B’s. He may not always be the first-in-last-out kind of guy on practice days. And he tries things on the ice that 99 percent of players shouldn’t. Sometimes, even he shouldn’t. But he has evolved since being the goofy, happy-go-lucky kid when he entered the league 11 years ago, without losing that exuberance.

“He does it his way,” said Sturm, likening him a bit to Alex Ovechkin. “Definitely not like a (Zdeno) Chara or maybe even (Patrice) Bergeron. So again, that’s the way he is. And the way he’s fun to be around, the guys feel it. He tries to stay positive, and the stuff he does on the ice, that’s on top of it. So that’s where everyone is like ‘Wow, he is the whole deal.’ So we’re all rooting for him.”

This B’s team is an extension of Pastrnak – it is fun.

So, for now at least, stopping obsessing about what kind of package Pavel Zacha could reap at the trade deadline, all you armchair general managers. It’s time to enjoy the Bruins’ hockey season that many of you didn’t think would happen.