The Boston Bruins have surprised a lot of people this season. For a team that wasn’t expecting to even see the playoffs this season, the Black and Gold have been proving a lot of the media wrong. For all the things the B’s are doing right this season, there is one big liability they’ve been battling against all season.
Their consistency.
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The Black and Gold have proven recently that they can bring their ‘A’ game against the best teams in the league. Their near win over Washington (a loss that was more on the refs than the Bruins) and their victory over Tampa Bay Lightning showed that the Bruins can be competitive against serious playoff teams. The problem is the Bruins seem to forget their game against teams that don’t have a prayer of seeing the postseason.It can be maddening for the fans and the players to see a golden opportunity for two points slip away against a mediocre team.
This evening was more of the same. The Bruins took their foot off the gas against a desperate Carolina Hurricanes team. While the Bruins did get a point (and take over first place in the Atlantic Division for the first time this season), they didn’t play to their strengths and ended up losing the extra point when all but Patrice Bergeron seemed to abandon Tuukka Rask during the 3-on-3 overtime.
Coach Claude Julien certainly can understand the fans (and his players) frustration.
“I don’t want to change to be honest with you because that would mean that certain games, and certain situations, are more important than others. When we talk about consistency in our game you want to get consistency in your thought process as well,” said Julien. “As I mentioned the other day, it’s really about how well you play. It’s not necessarily about going in there telling guys, ‘We have to win this game.’
“We have to play well in order to win that game. I wouldn’t really put an emphasis on our play versus the outcome. Usually when you do that you let the outcome take care of itself…that’s where I am. I’m not going to go in there and tell these guys it’s a bigger game than the next one. They all know where we are in the standings. Can we go out there and respect this team to the point where we’re going to play the same way we did in our last game.”
The Bruins will learn from this mistake and hopefully not repeat in their final thirteen games of the season.