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The hot-and-cold Boston Bruins are at it again.
Following a strong month of January that put the Black and Gold back in the driver’s seat of their playoff fate with a strong grip on the Eastern Conference wild card picture (and even coming within striking distance of the top-three spots in the Atlantic Division), the B’s have kicked February off with losses in three of four.
Their losses have been far from pretty, too.
The Bruins began their month with a 3-2 defeat in New York, narrowly escaped a loss at home against the Islanders (Boston allowed 40 shots), and then fell in key matchups, the first by a 3-1 final against Montreal and the second by a 5-3 score to the Dallas Stars. And in the blink of an eye, the Bruins have once again made it a race in the Eastern Conference, holding a mere four-point edge on the Florida Panthers for the second wild card, who have two games in hand over the Bruins fifty-something games into the NHL season.
“We just keep going back to the same mistakes we used to do and not keeping our heads in the game,” Boston netminder
Tuukka Rask said after the club’s loss on Tuesday night. “If we don’t fix that now, it’s going to be too late pretty soon. So hopefully we don’t have to talk about it anymore.”
It’s been a year-long fight for consistency from some of the club’s high-end talents, and though nobody will call anybody out by name, it’s clear that the misses are starting to tower over the hits.
“I’m not going to start chirping my teammates,” admitted Rask, who has appeared in 12 straight games. “But everybody who watches the games and follow our hockey can make their own assessment.”
Their struggles have also put a slight acceleration on making an upgrade before the Mar. 2 Trade Deadline.
The Bruins have been linked to Buffalo’s
Chris Stewart (nine goals and 22 points in 53 games) since before the start of the season, while Columbus’
Cam Atkinson (11 goals and 21 points in 48 games), and Toronto forwards
Mike Santorelli (11 goals and 29 points in 55 games) and
Daniel Winnik (five goals and 23 points in 55 games) have emerged as potential fits (this per ESPN's Pierre LeBrun). Boston and Buffalo have squabbled over Stewart’s price for months now, while Atkinson, Santorelli, and Winnik are new names.
Atkinson, a 5-foot-8 right-shooting winger from Connecticut, is without question an interesting name from a Boston perspective. Following last year’s career-high 21-goal, 40-point campaign, the former Boston College Eagle has struggled to regain a similar scoring touch, scoring just eight goals in the first 41 games of the season, and shooting .012 worse than 2013-14. But Atkinson’s remained a steady contributor for the Jackets, too, averaging 1.37 points per 60 minutes at even strength, while his advanced figures put him in the top six of a Columbus forward core that’s been simply decimated with injuries this season.
What makes Atkinson attractive to the Bruins, though, besides his right-shot on the right side, is the fact that he’s on the cap with an affordable $1.175 million figure this season, and is a restricted free agent at the end of this season.
Meanwhile, Santorelli and Winnik are obvious bottom six fixes.
Santorelli’s in the midst of his best season since 2010-11’s 41-point season in Florida, and hits the market with the fourth-best CF% among Toronto skaters, and is averaging 1.71 points per 60 minutes at 5-on-5. His teammate, the 6-foot-2 Winnik, has the second-best CF% among Leaf forwards, too. Both Santorelli ($1.5 million) and Winnik ($1.3 million) are not the type of talents that’ll break the bank, either.
One of Santorelli or Winnik would bring an undeniably solid upgrade to the Bruins’ struggling fourth line, which has been a constant work in progress (read as: struggle) for the Black and Gold this season, and give it the punch that Julien and the Bruins have come to expect from their fourth line.
(For what it's worth, it wouldn't shock me to see the Bruins jump in on the
Cody Franson sweepstakes as well given the struggles the Black and Gold have gone through on the second pairing, especially in terms of its puck-moving and mobility.)
Connecting the dots here, Toronto Maple Leafs general manager
Dave Nonis was at last Sunday’s Bruins-Canadiens game at TD Garden, while the B’s Ontario-based pro scout,
Adam Creighton, has been at the last two home games (along with western Canadian pro scout Tom McVie).
Still, these players are mere bandaids in comparison to what the Bruins need right now (and this spring).
In essence, the Bruins aren’t going anywhere if their top talents can't find a way to contribute.
“It is something that we have sort it out,” Boston captain
Zdeno Chara said. “We know that we have been better the last little while but again the last two, three games again, we started to have mental breakdowns and started drifting away from the game plan. That is something we can’t go back to again.
“We know that when we play a certain way we are pretty effective and when we are not we start doing something different and that is how we get into trouble. A lot of times we need better effort, we need better urgency, we need better mental focus. It is just a combination of all of those things.”
Time is of the essence, too, with the Bruins on the road for a brutal five-game road swing that includes stops in Vancouver, Chicago, and St. Louis beginning on Friday night. Good timing?
"I hope so,” Rask said when asked if this is a good time for the B’s to go out west. “I hope we start playing good hockey on the road. Last three, four games have been kind of awful. So, maybe. Hopefully it’s a good thing.”
Ty Anderson has been covering the Boston Bruins for HockeyBuzz.com since 2010, is a member of the Pro Hockey Writers Association's Boston Chapter, and can be contacted on Twitter, or emailed at Ty.AndersonHB[at]gmail.com
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