Boston Bruins: Skating On Thin Ice
The Boston Bruins find themselves in an all too familiar position. The B’s have lost three in a row and are on the verge of falling out of a playoff spot.
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The Boston Bruins are heading down a path they’ve been down a few too many times as of late. The B’s are finding themselves unable to put together victories at a time where every point is at a premium. This last week has seen the Bruins earn just one point out out six. It has also seen them fall from second in the Atlantic to just barely hanging on to a playoff spot.
“We played well,” said Bruins defenceman Torey Krug after the game. “We had a great game plan going into it. We executed it well. Our guys played hard, and a couple mistakes it ends up in the back of our net. You know, it’s one of those games where you’ve got to get that thing into overtime so that we can get the point and then move from there and try and win this thing.”
The Bruins played decent hockey in Friday night’s 1-0 loss to the Chicago Blackhawks. In the end, a series of errors allowed the Hawks to score on a 3-on-4 with just over 90 seconds remaining in regulation. That gave the Bruins their first back-to-back shutout losses for the first time in 14 years. It’s also the first time Chicago shut out Boston at home since 1970.
“At this point, you don’t want to rely on feeling like you deserve to win,” said Krug to the media after the game, courtesy of the Boston Bruins website. “You’ve got to somehow get the results…it’s a disappointing finish, but you take that game and you try to use it the next game, and I think you’re going to beat a lot of teams if you play like we did tonight.
“We thought we played a pretty solid game all around, but time and time again… we’re not in it for moral victories. We’ve got to start plucking points if we want to stay in this thing.”
Toronto will overtake the Bruins if they pull of a win in their next six games. It’s more than likely that the B’s will crawl into the All-Star break out of a playoff position. The Bruins will need to make some kind of change in order to spark production and earn a few points.
“We have to stand there again, take the responsibility for our own actions,” said Bruins coach Claude Julien. “It’s unfortunate because that minute-and-a-half that was left in the game kind of tarnished everything we done for the first whatever, 58 minutes.
“I thought we played pretty well against a good team. We had contained the guys that we needed to contain. We didn’t score any goals – I don’t think we did a good enough job there – we had some chances. But, again, you got to find ways to score goals.”
The Bruins are putting themselves in a position to miss the playoffs for the third year in a row. Veteran players are under-performing. The B’s look as if they’re falling apart, and that kind of look will only invite change.
Next: Bruins Shouldn't Fire Claude Julien
It’s looking more and more probable that the Bruins will remove Claude Julien from his job. That would be unfortunate. The B’s recent collapse should be blamed more on the players rather than the coach. But the overwhelming cry for change will likely cause the Jacobs clan to cut ties with the team’s all-time win leader.