When the puck drops Thursday night at TD Garden to officially kick off the 2017-18 season, the Bruins are going to look much younger than they did when their season ended after a six-game series loss to the Ottawa Senators last April.

With holes on their top two lines, more specifically on their wings, the Bruins addressed those issues internally with two of their promising prospects: Anders Bjork and Jake DeBrusk.

Separated in age by just 73 days, DeBrusk is a little more seasoned when it comes to professional hockey. Spending the entire 2016-17 season with the Providence Bruins, DeBrusk has continued to work on adjusting to the more speedy style of play than he saw playing for the Swift Current Broncos and the Red Deer Rebels of the WHL.

Nothing is set in stone yet, but it appears DeBrusk will kick off the 2017-18 campaign alongside David Krejci and David Pastrnak. Despite an impressive 19 goals and 49 points in 74 games with the P-Bruins, DeBrusk still has a lot of work to do. Learning on the fly is something the soon-to-be 21-year-old will be forced to do.

He struggled statistically in the preseason where he failed to register a single point in four games, but head coach Bruce Cassidy and company saw plenty they did like with DeBrusk’s game. The 2015 first round pick has a knack for attacking the net as evident in his two goalie interference infractions that led to two disallowed tallies.

“That’s much better than having to convince a guy to get from the outside to the inside,” said Cassidy. “He’s playing on the inside, and he’s going to have to if he’s going to play with Krejci and Pastrnak his role will be to get to that area for those guys; Get to the net, hopefully finish some plays going to the net.”

As DeBrusk continues to find his way up and down the ice, one area he has succeeded in has been listening to what he’s been told by the veterans in the room. DeBrusk says guys like Krejci, Brad Marchand and Patrice Bergeron have been great in helping him mature as a player and a person, both off and on the ice.

“Oh massive, I can speak just for myself but I know other guys have had different leadership, different veterans come up to them, but it’s really big and it makes you feel really comfortable and makes you feel really good,” DeBrusk said. “Around the room, you can talk to anybody and it’s one of those things that you become a team really quick. To have those guys break the barrier right away really helps everyone kind of move along and makes everyone on the team better because of it.”

Although the Bruins are looking for key contributions from both DeBrusk and Bjork, the expectations for Bjork may be just a bit higher. The former Notre Dame standout is set to open the season to the right of Bergeron and Marchand.

“Yeah, it’s very exciting,” Bjork said about skating with Bergeron and Marchand, “and I think that it’s obviously a great group and I’m very fortunate to be a part of it from the start here and I think one of the things I know is what it’s going to take to stay here and preparing myself to put the work in and to compete every day at practice and every game.”

Anders Bjork has risen up the Bruins’ prospect ranks since being taken in the fifth round in 2014. (Photo by Angela Spagna, Bruins Daily)

With the emergence of Marchand as one of the league’s top goal scorers and the growing chemistry between him and Bergeron, Bjork can only hope to fit in well with the dynamic duo. After skating with them for the majority of the preseason, Bjork can see why they’ve been so successful together.

“Yeah it’s definitely easy to see how they have chemistry because they work so hard and they’re so passionate about the game and they are just trying to find ways to win. They’re very competitive and they play the right way,” Bjork said Tuesday afternoon at Warrior Ice Arena during the Bruins annual media day. “They’re not easy to keep up with, but I am trying my best and I am trying to work as hard as they do to sort of get chemistry and find ways to be a positive on their line.”

Bjork’s upside is through the roof as he’s developed extremely well in his three seasons of collegiate hockey.

Since being drafted in the fifth round of the 2014 NHL entry draft, Bjork has developed a lot quicker than most expected.

“Anders has taken a real leap in his own development. Last year, had a tremendous year,” general manager Don Sweeney said during Tuesday afternoon’s press conference.

“We really feel like he’s going to bring a lot to our hockey team, with the speed and skill that he has. Back when he was drafted, he was in a development program that was really playing in a third line role, and not really playing with the upper echelon players, and penalty killing and power play situations. You’ve seen him evolve over the course of time.”

The Bruins finished 13th in goals last season and saw all four playoff losses come in one-goal games. They can only hope that the combination of Bjork and DeBrusk can help them score more goals and turn those one-goal playoff losses into playoff wins.

Of course, they have to get there first.