The Bruins aren’t only a mediocre hockey team, they’re becoming something far worse
COMMENTARY
The time is coming, sooner than later, when the Boston Bruins will no longer possess the benefit of flying under the general radar of the Boston sports opinion.
The Patriots have at most 19 days at the forefront of the conscious everyday talk, with the AFC Championship game set for Sunday in Foxborough with a trip to Houston on the line. The Celtics might be a contender in the East — more likely they’re not — but at least definitively can now call Isiah Thomas an emerging NBA superstar. The Red Sox, whenever they’re not busy with their incessant winter campaign of selling Pablo Sandoval via Instagram, don’t begin spring training for another month.
Which all means that those not paying as close attention as the Bruins’ increasingly-beleaguered diehards will soon realize what Bruins fans have begun to understand.
The Bruins aren’t only a mediocre NHL hockey team. They’re beginning to mature into something far worse.
From the casual look of things, the Bruins don’t exactly appear to be a helpless, unmitigated mess. They have a two-point lead on the Toronto Maple Leafs in the Atlantic Division, sitting in playoff position nine points behind the division-leading Montreal Canadiens. Twenty-year-old David Pastrnak is destined to be a 30-goal scorer (plus) in his third season in the league. Brad Marchand has proven to be worth every penny of the $49 million contract he signed with the team last September. Tuukka Rask has shaken off his legion of critics to put together a season that few others between the pipes can boast.
Yet, take a closer look at the NHL standings and you’ll discover a different story here. The Leafs, who have played 42 games to date, have five games in hand on the Bruins, and yet the Bruins remain clinging to that second spot, with the possibility of quickly dropping to the second wild card slot, if not entirely out of the playoff picture in the coming days.
Most concerning, there was Monday afternoon’s embarrassing loss to the last-place New York Islanders, a game during head coach Claude Julien pulled Rask in the wake of allowing three goals on 15 shots, including a woofer off the stick of Josh Bailey during the game’s second period. But it wasn’t just Rask that was to blame for the 4-0 loss. Nobody showed up to play for the matinee, only two days after Marchand’s five-point day led the team to a 6-3 win over the Philadelphia Flyers.
“It was really our whole team throughout the lineup that didn’t show up,” Patrice Bergeron said. “That’s obviously unacceptable.”
It was also the sort of performance that perhaps gave new relevance to the “Fire Claude” crowd.
Monday’s laugher did cost one coach his job. It just so happened to be Islanders coach Jack Capuano who got canned after his team’s 17th win of the season. This coming after back-to-back 100-point seasons for the Islanders, and a second-round loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning last spring.
Yet, Julien remains following back-to-back late-season chokes the last two seasons, and in the midst of what looks to be a growing malaise on the Bruins bench.
Maybe general manager Don Sweeney and team president Cam Neely are still having trouble connecting the dots.
Despite his team’s ghastly performance on Monday, Julien cancelled practice Tuesday, giving the Bruins a reward for coming unglued only 24 hours earlier.
‘I still believe in this group,’’ Julien said on Tuesday. “Having said that, I think I also understand that there’s work to be done and there’s challenges ahead.’’
Cool. So, where was the culpability of the failure against New York on Tuesday?
“You have to regroup and recharge your batteries and feel better,’’ Bergeron said. “Maybe a little bit of fatigue was part of it, and you use a day like today to look forward, to look at videos, and be better for the next day, because it happens fast.’’
That doesn’t apply to the status of the coach, of course, who has hung onto his job like the kitten in the inspirational posters over the last two years despite less-than-stellar results. Yes, the Bruins have had lots of changing faces since they hoisted the Stanley Cup six years ago, but Julien hasn’t exactly done much to sway the sometimes over-generalized public opinion that he’s too dependent on veterans over younger players. Pastrnak flies in the face of that theory. Ryan Spooner probably won’t find his game if Julien served it to him on a fast food tray.
“I’m not avoiding the question,” Sweeney told the Globe’s Fluto Shinzawa last weekend when the subject of Julien’s job was raised. “I think it’s an obvious one. You have to look at every different thing.”
The Bruins are 3-3-1 to start 2017, with little cohesion to speak of besides the wins in Florida, St. Louis, and Saturday over Philadelphia. There are periods when they simply don’t show up, games, like Monday, when they pack it in and label the effort “inexcusable.” They’ll probably rebound Wednesday night in Detroit. They’ll probably implode, once again, Friday night against the Chicago Blackhawks.
Wash. Repeat. At least the inconsistency is consistent.
“I feel that I’m doing my job,” Julien said.
So, what is it then? The Bruins’ defense, so undermanned the last two seasons, has improved (Boston is sixth in the NHL with 2.47 goals allowed per game), but they’re 20th in the league in scoring (115 goals), despite having played a handful more games than some of the competition (they’re 23rd in the league with a 2.45 goals per game average). But it’s the team’s Inability to produce some semblance of staying power that has been the biggest issue all season. Some would argue it’s been the biggest death knell the last three seasons.
The Bruins play in Pittsburgh Sunday afternoon, a game you might see bits and pieces of as you lay out the spread for the AFC Championship game. There won’t be any such excuse within the coming weeks.
Maybe the Bruins won’t have any by then as well.
To comment, please create a screen name in your profile
To comment, please verify your email address
Conversation
This discussion has ended. Please join elsewhere on Boston.com