It hasn’t been the kind of season the Boston Bruins were hoping for. A team with Stanley Cup aspirations, Boston is struggling to just stay ahead of the Florida Panthers for the final wild card spot in the Eastern Conference.
And Bruins president Cam Neely isn’t pleased with the performance.
“You go through this whole range of feelings when things aren’t going well,” Neely told Kevin Paul Dupont of the Boston Globe after Monday’s loss to Calgary. “I’ve been frustrated. I’ve had some anger tossed in there. And now, for the first time, I’ve landed on disappointed.’’
The Bruins are a team built to go all-in for the short term. When David Krejci signed a six-year extension prior to the season, with a $7.25 million cap hit that kicks in next season, they further restricted their mobility under the cap. Patrice Bergeron, Zdeno Chara, Milan Lucic, Dennis Seidenberg and Tuukka Rask round out an expensive, aging core that has reached two Cup finals in four seasons.
But now that group is in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons. The defense, thinned by the departure of Johnny Boychuk in the summer, doesn’t have the depth or mobility it once did. As Sportsnet’s Mark Spector wrote earlier this week, the Bruins now face a very difficult decision on what to do with 38-year-old Zdeno Chara. The offence has fallen from third-best in the league a year ago to a tie for 21st this season. Even Rask’s numbers have taken a hit this season, although his .920 save percentage is still in a tie for 13th in the league.
But just how do the Bruins, a team designed to be committed to this core, fix it if they miss the playoffs? How do they react to the inconsistency they’ve seen this season before the March 2 trade deadline? Do they do anything major, or shed overly expensive players such as Seidenberg?
“So what this is about for me is the remainder of the season and then moving forward past the season,’’ Neely told the Globe. “I have to look short-term and long-term. Whatever we look at has to make sense for both. I don’t think we’re interested in sacrificing the future for the immediate.’’
This is the second time a senior member of the Bruins organization has voiced their frustration with the current roster. In early January, Bruins CEO Charlie Jacobs called his team’s performance “unacceptable.”
After that, Boston went on a run of nine wins in 12 games, but have since sagged back to where they were before. Boston has lost five games in a row, the worst of which was blowing a 3-0 lead to the Calgary Flames on Monday night.
“I’ve been frustrated at times in the past,’’ Neely said to the Globe, “but for the most part our team’s compete and effort level has always been there. So, yeah, I’ve not been to the ‘disappointed’ stage before.”
The team seems prepared to do something to right the ship, but with so much already invested in this current group, it will be hard to do anything meaningful in-season. In fact, perhaps coach Claude Julien is the most at risk to depart.
