Shooting for Stanley Cup is a realistic goal

And they could go all the way.

It's good to be a Bruin again, and it's even OK to be a fan of the Bruins again. No longer is it necessary to seek out that one Black-and-Gold confidant at the office party, steal into a corner, and discuss, sotto voce, the merits of the Shawn Thornton-Stephane Yelle-Byron Bitz checking line or the hybrid netminding style of Tim Thomas.

Takes a while to adjust to not being the butt end of everyone's jokes, doesn't it?

Heck, CDs were still a hot item the last time the Bruins were cool, and when someone mentioned DirecTV or satellite radio, Slingbox or even the Internet, our imaginations ran off to the likes of James Bond, Ray Bradbury, and Maxwell Smart.

Once again we are Sportstown USA, and the Bruins are back in town as unexpected, legitimate contenders for the Stanley Cup. A convincing favorite, no, but they are absolutely among a small cadre of clubs - along with the Sharks, Wings, and Capitals - that should produce the 2009 champion.

Sure, be cool and pick the Sharks. Many of the pundits have done just that for the last 3-4 years, especially since the arrival of Jumbo Joe Thornton, only to see the sexy contenders from the Western Conference fold up shop in the second round. The Sharks have been bounced in Round 2 three straight seasons, by three different teams, and now they have the first-round, uh, pleasure of taking on the Ducks, who were the Cup champs less than 24 months ago.

The Wings are the reigning champs, and they've just completed another season of 100-plus points, their ninth in a row. We'll make them the favorites, and hope that the Bruins face them in the Cup final for the first time since 1943 - back when Johnny Mowers blanked the Bruins in Game 3 and 4, handing the Winged Wheels a four-game sweep.

The Capitals are a dynamic offensive machine and have the game's most electrifying offensive performer in Alexander Ovechkin, who potted 56 goals this year to win the NHL's goal-scoring title for a second year in a row. In four seasons, Alexander the Great has averaged a fraction less than 55 goals.

Back when things went bad for the Bruins, in the early to mid '90s, it began to take them until about New Year's Eve to come up with 55 goals. And since getting bounced in Round 2 of the '99 playoffs, their total postseason production has been, yes, 55 goals.

For all the attention this season on Washington's offensive prowess, though, the Bruins actually scored two more goals (274-272), in part thanks to the hat trick Phil Kessel collected Sunday on Long Island. So there you go. The Caps have AO, whose scoring highlights on YouTube must be watched with a large bucket of popcorn at one's side, and the Bruins have Phil the Thrill (a team-leading 36 goals) and a half-dozen other forwards who cracked the 20-goal plateau.

The only team to score more than Boston this year? Detroit, with 295 goals. Can't we just fast-forward through these first three rounds of appetizers and get to the main course?

There have been better Boston teams, even without looking through that distorted, scratched, and rose-colored prism of the early '70s Big Bad Bruins. The Black-and-Gold iterations that made it to the Cup finals in 1988 and '90 also paled in comparison to the Bobby Orr-Phil Esposito-Gerry Cheevers Bruins, but they were powerful clubs, led by the likes of Ray Bourque and Cam Neely and the netminding tandem of Reggie Lemelin-Andy Moog.

If not for the misfortune of bad timing - having to face Edmonton in the waning years of the Oiler dynasty - the Bruins today might not be going on 37 years since their most recent Stanley Cup. The solace today is that, in part because of the salary cap that was instituted leaguewide in 2005 (some 30 years after Harry Sinden instituted a salary cap on Causeway Street), there isn't a counterpart to the Oiler dynasty and there likely never will be one.

As effective teams are being built in the New NHL, the restraints on salary make it nearly impossible to keep them intact. Bruins GM Peter Chiarelli, the architect of the best Boston team since Bourque and Neely after less than three years in the front office, will find it difficult this summer to scratch together the finances necessary to keep young standouts David Krejci, Matt Hunwick, and Kessel, and it will be all the harder if the Hub of Hockey sees a Cup parade here in June. Duck Boats equate to payrolls with big bucks, and big bucks equate to painful payroll decisions.

But the fun is about to begin. The Bruins, with 53 victories logged in 2008-09 - their most since winning 54 in 1971-72 - stand today where they have stood 31 times since their last Cup: needing 16 more victories to finish the job.

Is this the year? Perhaps. If Thomas stays hot, if the scorers keep scoring, if Zdeno Chara keeps playing like the Mount Kilimanjaro that he scaled last summer, then anything is possible. The Bruins are back, central to the discussion in the barber shops and saloons on Main Street, in Sportstown USA.

Kevin Paul Dupont can be reached at dupont@globe.com.