The Boston Bruins are now on a six game skid as the Atlanta Thrashers laid the smack down on them in a 5-0 embarrassment in Atlanta tonight. Mercifully, while the Thrashers did deliver the Bruins to rock bottom, they spared them the embarrassment of the people’s elbow.
Here’s a quick recap of the game before the blog moves on to bigger issues. The Thrashers kept scoring and getting really nice shots on the net while the Bruins looked generally inept at one-on-one puck battles, goaltending and finishing on scoring chances. At the beginning of the game, Rob Simpson was talking about how the next Bruin goal is number 18,000 in franchise history. He said something like “unless the Bruins are shut-out tonight, which we don’t expect, the Bruins will score the 18,000th goal in franchise history.” I thought “well if that’s not a jinx then I don’t know what is.” Sure enough, while Kozlov, Kovalchuk, Holik, Dupuis, and Zhitnik all scored for the Thrashers, no one scored for the Bruins.
On an interesting side-note, in case anyone missed this stat while NESN was showing it, that 17,999 franchise goals is second best for all franchises in the NHL, only behind the Canadiens. I’ve noticed that in the pre-game notes for Bruin games, it’s really rare that the Bruins have a losing record against a team. We Bruin fans may do a lot of complaining but I thought this stat was a good reminder that there have been good times too.
That’s pretty much all you need to know about tonight’s game. The following is a ranking of painful, gross and uncomfortable things to watch (in order of severity with number one being most severe):
5. Kevin Costner in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves or Waterworld.
4. Britney Spears concerts.
3. O.R. Surgery shows.
2. Tonight’s game.
1. Bruins vs. Habs games.
No doubt some Bruin fans are now screaming for a trade, a firing, a hanging, or all of the above. Others will want the team to stand pat and wait for more prospects to come around and for the team to improve the proper way. I can understand where both of these types of fans are coming from, but which way is the proper way to go about things?
In the first scenario, Chiarelli can try to trade either picks or prospects for a big-time player (if any are available, which is unlikely) or he can try to trade for more second and third liners, as if that has worked out in the past. This will surely bind the Bruins with more salary and it will mess up the chemistry on the team, which finally is not dealing with a lot of turnover. Other teams can take advantage of the Bruins’ situation right now and the Bruins would be selling themselves short in whatever trade discussions they entered.
Maybe you think Chiarelli is a lousy GM and he should be fired for what is going on right now. Putting aside that he can’t do anything about concussions, broken feet and bad hip-flexors on players he has tried unsuccessfully to unload, a lot of people no doubt think that Chiarelli is mostly responsible for the recent slump. I think Chiarelli has not been given even close to the amount of time required to turn a club around in the proper manner and that if you consider the overall picture, he is doing a decent job, especially for a rookie GM. The Providence Bruins are 27-5-2, the Bruins have tons of young talent in juniors, college, Europe, the AHL and the NHL, Claude Julien has been very good for the club, the roster has become stabilized and the club actually has some direction and leadership and a lot of this is because of Peter Chiarelli.
Jack Edwards went on a fairly long-winded blab-fest today about the Bruins, their trade options, what the team needs most, etc…etc…etc. As Brickley joked “I thought you were going to actually call the play there”, I was thinking “this is ridiculous, you’d think the Bruins have had it for all eternity.” Let’s face it folks, it is what it is. It’s just a six game losing streak. Six games is not a big enough sample to freak out about and it’s definitely not the end of the world.
The rough patch the Bruins are going through right now is not the same as the poor play from last year. Firstly, we’re not watching guys like Tenkrat and Mowers. We’re watching guys like Lucic and Mark Stuart. These guys will improve. Secondly, the Bruins do at least look physical and they defend one another. That could not be said of the team last year. Thirdly, everyone else in the Conference, minus a couple of teams, is in the same boat as the Bruins are.
The patented Gerry system to getting a winning hockey team:
1. Have patience and build through the draft. Be prepared to lose and treat everything as a learning experience
2. Don’t make panic trades.
3. Don’t trade away draft picks.
4. Don’t trade away prospects.
5. Get a great coach and a handful of vets and let them teach the young guys.
6. Once you have built up a stable nucleus, team chemistry, a system and a solid farm team, begin using your player equity to tweak the team and acquire missing pieces while you’re in a position of strength.
It really is that simple. If the Bruins just continue to let guys like Lucic, Krejci, Kessel, Bergeron, Hunwick, Stuart, Lashoff, Sigalet, Alexandrov, Marchand, Hamill, Cross, etc, develop, they’ll be fine. And that list is not even close to exhaustive.
So let’s not lose our heads here. The Bruins should be patient and not start making big trades (barring the freak “I can’t turn this down” type of trade) until the proper time, which should be a few years from now.
Anyone looking for a blog that demands that heads roll, that totally craps on the Bruins, or that gets really down just because the Bruins have lost six in a row (with more than half of the season left to go) just isn’t going to find that kind of blog here. There’s no way after all I wrote about how much this organization is turning around that I’ll begin dumping on everyone because the team is facing a rough patch. This six game losing streak just isn’t a big deal in the grand scheme of things and I can’t be bothered to get that worked up about it.
The Bruins are going to be fine. I think this because Claude Julien will find a solution. I think one possible solution is just to tell the players to not think about the streak and to go into every game with the confidence of a winner. In this mediocre Eastern Conference, it can pretty much be as simple as that.
So be at ease folks. The organization is fine, no mediocre trades are necessary, firings would just cause instability and in an 82 game season in a cruddy Conference, a six game loss streak is no big deal. If you thought Julien was doing a good job a month ago, you should probably still stand by him and if you thought the team was steadily improving a month ago, you should probably still stand by that too.
-Gerz
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