The Boston Bruins were hoping for at least three points from their most recent road trip in California. Unfortunately, the Black and Gold weren’t able to put up a single point as the B’s fell in all three road games. Now, the B’s have to move on from their losses and focus on the final games of the season. The Bruins 86 points are still good enough for third in the Atlantic, but the Red Wings are just three points behind them.
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The Bruins understand that if they want to keep control over their own destiny, they’ll need to pull out all the stops in their final games. That may not be easy as the next team up are the New York Rangers.
“Things aren’t going to get any easier,” offered Bruins bench boss Claude Julien said in an interview with NESN after Saturday’s loss. “Everybody’s fighting for a spot. Everybody’s fighting to get into the playoffs and even better themselves going forward. We’ve got a tough road ahead of us, and if we play the way we did in the second and third period (Saturday), we’ll be able to manage that and manage it well.”
The Bruins are battling, but certainly got battered out in California. The B’s were outscored 9-2 by the three California teams in San Jose, Anaheim and Los Angeles. (Overall, the Bruins were 0-for-6 against the California teams, getting blown out in scoring by a 29-11 margin.) Granted, the losses weren’t as bad as the games they played at the TD Garden, but the B’s have got to find that elusive fifth gear when they take on the better teams of the Western Conference.
Thankfully, the last few weeks of the schedule are on the Boston Bruins’ side. They play six out of eight Eastern Conference teams, and the Bruins have proven that they can beat all of them. Now the fans will see just how good all of Don Sweeney‘s moves were.
The Bruins still have a few unresolved questions going into the final three weeks of the regular season. Will Lee Stempniak be a solid enough piece to the roster that he won’t move next year? Can John-Michael Liles be a solid asset in the postseason? Will Jimmy Hayes and Brett Connolly find their game again, and will it take benching them for Frank Vatrano or even Chris Kelly to make it happen?
Hopefully, the Bruins will be able to answer most of these questions. As long as the Bruins remember how to play their game, they’ll be able to make a good accounting for themselves in the postseason.