BOSTON -- Luckily for Don Sweeney and the Boston Bruins, Sunday night told them everything they need to know about their hockey club.
While they’d had a couple of quality wins over the Dallas Stars and Pittsburgh Penguins in the last week-plus, there were also the same old danger signs for the Black and Gold. They’d needed Tuukka Rask to stop 80-of-82 pucks in their last two wins over the 'Pens and 'Canes, and that masked some of the chronic defensive issues that have plagued this fatally flawed team all season.
The Bruins are certainly good enough to make the playoffs among a mediocre group in the Eastern Conference. They’ve all but proven that with 20 games remaining in the season. But the Bruins would also face the Tampa Bay Lightning in the first round of the playoffs if the season ended today, and it was men against boys in an important Sunday night showdown at the Garden.
The final score was a 4-1 win for the Bolts, and it could have been worse based on the parade of B’s defensive breakdowns forced by the speed and skill of the Lightning. It was all of the warts and imperfections of the B’s roster uncovered and exploited by a good team, and that’s exactly what’s in store for Boston in the near future.
“They played a solid game, but a lot of it was from us not executing and not making the right passes, and the easy passes I guess. We were chasing the puck most of the night,” said Patrice Bergeron. “It was disappointing. They played well, but we’ve got to be what we can be, and we’ve got to be a lot better.
“It has to be better. Too many times we don’t execute a system, and that’s when the breakdowns happen. So we’ve got to be a lot smarter.”
Part of it is being smarter, of course. But part of it is also a big, slow and lumbering defensemen pair like Zdeno Chara and Adam McQuaid getting completely swallowed by Tampa’s top forward line of Alex Killorn-Steven Stamkos-Ryan Callahan. It’s exactly the kind of scenario that will play out in the playoffs where a good team operating at a high intensity level is going to expose the Bruins weaknesses, and make it a very short series.
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Only somebody smoking the most potent of synthetic drugs would believe the Bruins truly have a chance against a team like Tampa Bay in a best-of-seven playoff series.
The bottom line for the Bruins is this: The inconsistent B’s are 20th in the NHL allowing 2.8 goals per game with a mistake-prone defensemen corps, and those teams don’t ever last very long in the Stanley Cup playoffs. One could sense the frustration from the veteran Bruins players that the same mistakes are being made over and over again, and it’s not surprising given that it’s the same cast of characters on a hockey team that isn’t great, but isn’t terrible either.
“Every time you lose, it’s no good,” said David Krejci. “Even though we were maybe winning the last couple of games, we still [haven’t] played the way we want to play. You know, you want to go into playoffs feeling good about your team. I felt like we were heading in the right direction before this game -- it was never perfect, but we were going in the right direction.
“I felt like tonight was kind of a step back, so we have to work on some stuff, especially those little details. In this league, it’s a big thing. [They’re] just little things, but it goes a long way.”
This is why the Bruins need to be both buyers and sellers, and they must move Loui Eriksson prior to the 3 p.m. trade deadline. The Bruins are good enough to make the playoffs, but they’re not good enough to make a prolonged run against good teams playing their best hockey. Sunday night’s spanking at the hands of the Lightning should have been a stark reminder of that.
So that’s why it’s incumbent upon Don Sweeney to move Eriksson to the highest bidder on Monday, and get first-round picks, an established defenseman like Jonas Brodin or whatever prospects they can get for the biggest prize on the market. The ideal play has Sweeney netting a defenseman for Eriksson from one of the offensively challenged Western Conference teams in Minnesota, St. Louis or Anaheim, and then making a second deal to temporarily replace Eriksson’s spot in the lineup. Or perhaps a deal to a team with both a D-man and a winger available (think Radim Vrbata and Dan Hamhuis in Vancouver, or Fedor Tyutin and Scott Hartnell in Columbus) if its draft picks and prospects that is best haul for Loui Loui.
Eriksson and the Bruins aren’t going to come to agreement on a contract, and that’s been obvious since the beginning of the season.
The Bruins aren’t in a position to let Eriksson walk away for a nominal draft pick on July 1 before signing with another team, and essentially getting nothing for the last major vestige of the Tyler Seguin trade with Dallas.
Sweeney and Bruins president Cam Neely need to be honest about their hockey club, and their chances of doing damage in the playoffs. There have been signs all along the way this season that the Bruins will get exposed in the playoffs, and it might even happen down the stretch with Boston holding the toughest schedule (opponents have a .591 winning percentage) of remaining games of any team in the NHL.
So the Bruins need to what’s right for the organization short term and long term, and that means maximizing Eriksson as an asset with his trade value higher than it’s ever been during his three years in Boston.
,” said David Krejci. “