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Bruins Continue Losing Ways |
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Last night’s 3-1 loss against the Lightning was a carbon copy of the last several Bruin losses. The Bruins kept up with their opponents in the physicality department and they out-shot their opponents but they just couldn’t win. Their ice cold offence has become more difficult to watch than the Phantom Menace and their ability to finish is, well, nonexistent. It is my regretful duty to report that last night’s loss came against a team that is currently fighting it out with Los Angeles for the dishonour of being the worst team in the NHL. The loss came against a team that the Bruins normally dominate at home, even when the Lightning are relatively on their game. This means the Bruins squandered the best chance they were going to have to rebound and begin anew. This also meant that I was forced, in between periods, to channel my rage into defeating the armies of Liu Bei and Cao Cao in Dynasty Warriors for the 360. You see that Bruins? You lost and I had to kill thousands of electronic Chinese warriors because of it.
The pressure is on in full force this weekend. The Bruins take on Philly this Saturday and then they will be playing Washington on Sunday. These two teams are still battling for the playoffs and considering how much trouble the Bruins had scoring on a team that was eliminated long ago, this weekend figures to be a painful experience. The only saving grace over the last couple of weeks is that both Philly and Buffalo, the Bruins’ main playoff threats, have been struggling just as much as Boston. The Bruins are in the playoffs right now but, really, they should thank their lucky stars, rabbit feet, horseshoes, jock, rash, jock rash, or whatever. Buffalo, the ninth place team, is currently pacing for about 87 points so it looks like getting anything above that could potentially give the Bruins a playoff berth. It is a sad statement though when one has to start thinking this way. It’s also a by-product of the parity (or the system that forces each team to suck just as much as everyone else) in the NHL.
Something the team needs right now is a hero. The Bruins need someone to take control and carry the team on his back. Unfortunately, the only three candidates that have ever been able to do so are currently facing challenges of their own. Zdeno Chara, whose return would be a godsend, is currently on the shelf with some sort of injury. Maybe it’s gut-rot…who knows? Tim Thomas is struggling for whatever reason and he doesn’t seem poised to come out of it (though I wouldn’t pin last night’s loss on him). Marc Savard clearly did everything he could last night and it was to no avail. In fact, Savard’s line-mates should be ashamed that they couldn’t cash in on any of the opportunities that Savard provided. So where does that leave the Bruins until Chara gets back? It leaves them with some opportunities to get contributions from underachievers and it also leaves Claude Julien with some interesting decisions to make.
Barring the miraculous emergence of Milan Lucic into this generation’s Cam Neely by this weekend, Julien is unlikely to get the star offensive player with leadership qualities that he so desperately needs right now. He can, however, try out a few different things with his lines. After all, what does he have to lose? So, I’m going to throw a few things out there and you guys can tell me which of them you would like to see and which you think are bad ideas:
1. Andrew Ference still played almost 20 minutes last night. Though I’m glad to see Stuart had his time upped a little and Ference had his reduced a little, I’m not sure enough of a change was made here. The Bruins typically do better when they have two d-men that they can rely on to play almost (or a little more than) half of the game. We already know Wideman is capable of doing this. Let’s see if Mark Stuart is capable of it as well. I don’t think Ference should be playing any more than 10-15 minutes a game and I would even up Hnidy, Ward and Lashoff’s time to do this.
2. The team’s youth movement was able to pull the club out of some sticky situations earlier in the year so let’s see if they can do it again. Instead of Murray, who has been looking very useless lately, and P.J. on the top line with Savard, let’s see what Krejci and Lucic can do. Murray is getting far more minutes than his play deserves and I have to think that he is only getting his almost 20 minutes a game of ice-time simply because of his paycheque. That’s not the accountability we were promised at the start of the year, is it? The offence is already at rock bottom so let’s see what the young guns can do, if only for one game.
3. Does anyone else want the players and coach to stop pretending that they just have to keep on going hard to the net and “finding ways” to score goals and start being a little more creative with the puck? Standing near the crease is fine and it is a genuinely good weapon but if that and shots from the point are your only ways of scoring then you’ve got to re-evaluate things. I think the young guys I mentioned above and also Nokelainen and Kessel could come up with some new offensive ideas. Again, what is there to lose?
4. On the penalty-kill get the players to be more aggressive and less passive. During the six game win streak, the Bruins’ PK unit was fantastic. I think the difference there was aggression. It was tougher to get in past their blue-line and the other teams were forced to move the puck more quickly or risk losing it and possibly coughing up a short-handed chance.
5. I want the Bruins to chill out. I want them to skate with the puck and see if they can actually get into the slot before they fire it. I don’t want them to treat the puck like a hot potato or fire it into the backsides of their team-mates (I’m looking at you P.J.) just because they have no vision of what to do next. The most important thing I would like to see Julien stress is that the expression “a shot is never a bad play” is wrong. It is, indeed, a bad play if you don’t have any sort of a shooting lane and your shot is guaranteed be either blocked or stopped by the goalie. Remember Bruins, matter cannot occupy the same space as other matter. I realize split-second decisions are not easy and that it looks much more clear from above than it does on the ice but the next time I see a Bruin lazily fire a shot that they know will not go in/that they can see will not make it through whatever is in front of them, I think I’ll have to resort to huffing glass cleaner just to calm me down.
6. Peter Schaefer should be replaced with Jeremy Reich and if Sobotka is going to be used just for five or six minutes a game, I think he should be replaced with Nokelainen or someone else who is more likely to score.
I know a lot of this stuff isn’t ideal and much of it won’t happen for various reasons ranging from locker-room/hockey politics, unforeseen injuries, little details that Julien is privy to that others aren’t and also the reputations and names of some players but I thought I would throw this stuff out there anyways. Remember, these changes don’t have to be permanent but it would be nice to see some effort to spark the team and it would be nice to give everyone a real chance to be the hero of the day.
- Gerz
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