Like they were a year ago, and the year before that one, too, the Boston Bruins are at a crossroads.
In back-to-back seasons, the Bruins collapsed their way out of the postseason. On the final day(s) of the season, no less. But still, even as the club unsuccessfully scoured the trade market for an upgrade to their top four -- again, for the second straight season -- hope springs eternal as the B’s get set for yet another 82-game grind with the same core that’s twice been to the Stanley Cup Final since 2011.
What’s the definition of insanity again?
“We have to play better,… Bruins team president Cam Neely said at the team’s annual media day. “It starts with that. So, the returning players, they’ve expressed that they can improve on their game from last year, starting from goaltender all the way out to defensemen. And then, as you’ve noticed, we’ve got some new players in the lineup right now, whether it’s acquisition or draft picks. So, hopefully those guys will add some improvement to our club. We feel they will. The guys that are certainly still here, they deserve to be here and they’ve shown they can play right now.…
And after two straight non-qualifiers for postseason play, the pressure is on the Bruins.
From all angles, but most notably, above.
“I share the expectations with everybody here that we’ll be in the playoffs and I expect them to get deep in the playoffs,… B’s owner Jeremy Jacobs said. “I think this is a very good mix of young and old players, and when I say old, experienced. So, I’m looking forward to going into the playoff season.…
“I don’t want to just talk about making the playoffs, it’s about a bigger goal than that for us here,… Neely, the team president since 2010, said. “And, obviously, to achieve that goal, you have to get into the postseason. That’s something that we haven’t been happy with the past couple of years. We were close, but we didn’t make it. That’s really what, it’s a result-oriented business. We feel like the goal is to continue to build for a championship club and the experience that you get in the playoffs is huge.…
The Bruins have not missed the playoffs in back-to-back-to-back seasons since Jacobs purchased the team in 1975, and have not as an organization since a completely forgettable 1964 to 1967 run, which came as the ending to what was an eight-year long playoff drought in the Hub.
Scoring goals was not an issue for the Black and Gold last season. Nor should it be this year, either.
Although the Bruins lost Loui Eriksson to the Vancouver Canucks this offseason, the club appears to have not missed a beat with the acquisition of David Backes on a five-year, $30 million contract. It’s a contract that the Bruins may have a tough time with later, but in the now, with the ability to play both wing and center, and after a preseason with six assists in just three games (and all with different linemates), it’s clear that Backes is a definite fit for the Bruins.
“We knew what we were getting there,… Bruins coach Claude Julien, now in his 10th year in Boston, said of Backes’ first impressions with the club. “He’s a former captain in St. Louis so we knew we had a good leader. He’s been great on the ice but he’s also been great off the ice. He’s talking to the young kids and helping them out. I hear him on the bench, making sure that even with his linemates that he’s talking to them all the time and letting them know what is expected. Spoons [Ryan Spooner] is more or less a centerman so he’s been helping him on the wing and trying to get his ear to listen to his questions and trying to get better as a winger. So I think he has been good in that way. He’s a real positive influence in our dressing room so it’s good to have a guy like that.…
Without an offseason import to bolster their defense, the Backes signing was just one of several that represented a concerted effort by the Bruins to bolster their defensive game with stronger three-zone forwards. In addition to Backes, the Bruins inked Riley Nash, a sneakily good bottom-six forward, to a two-year deal, and added left-shooting faceoff specialist Dom Moore on a one-year deal.
It’s also loaded the Bruins with centers, too, as the Bruins will roll with a second line of all centers when healthy, with Backes and Spooner on the wing with David Krejci in the middle. And camp competition winner (and a P-Bruins standout last year), Austin Czarnik, will center a Boston third line between the big-bodied Matt Beleskey and Jimmy Hayes.
The biggest x-factor for the Bruins offense this year, though, will be the play of third-year pro David Pastrnak. Slated to skate on Boston’s top line with Brad Marchand and Patrice Bergeron, the team’s top two scorers from a year ago, the 20-year-old Pastrnak, who has tallied 25 goals and 53 points in 97 NHL games, could be poised for a big year.
If he succeeds with Bergeron and Marchand, who he noted as having “unbelievable chemistry…, Pastrnak would become the first success story to Bergeron’s right since Tyler Seguin in 2011-12.
Along with Czarnik, Danton Heinen has made the big club as a first-year NHLer.
This is where things get messy for the Bruins.
It’s been two years since Johnny Boychuk was traded to the New York Islanders and just one year since Dougie Hamilton was traded to the Calgary Flames. Both were traded for mere draft picks, but finally, one of those draft picks is ready to shine in their place, in Brandon Carlo.
Drafted by the Black and Gold in the second round of their 2015 haul of a draft, the 19-year-old will make his NHL debut on Boston’s top-pairing opposite Zdeno Chara. At 6-foot-5, and paired with the 6-foot-9 captain, what Carlo does well is eliminate space along the walls and challenge skaters at the Boston blue versus simply falling back into a defensive-zone retreat. But Carlo is still just 19, and the Bruins will have to go through the growing pains that will come with being a teenage NHLer if they’re truly committed to Carlo’s development out of the gate. You could say the same for a player like Colin Miller, who, though older,needs a full-time role to show his skills. Joe Morrow, too. And, of course, another first-year pro that earned a job in camp, Robbie O’Gara.
In the lineup through his own play and with injuries to both Adam McQuaid (upper-body) and Kevan Miller (fracture in his left hand), the 23-year-old O’Gara comes to the Bruins after an impressive four-year run with Yale University that came with a vast improvement in every season. O’Gara, like Carlo, can play a more simplified role in the defensive zone, and can be expected to serve as the muscle, at least to begin the year, next to Torey Krug on Boston’s second pairing.
The Bruins will also benefit from a full year of John-Michael Liles, a deadline pickup re-signed to a one-year, $2 million contract this season, as the club’s No. 2 puck-mover behind Krug.
But if this group falters and struggles for the third year in a row, expect the Black and Gold to do their part and see if they can unload a veteran contract, add a player like Jacob Trouba, any number of Anaheim’s defensemen, or re-inquire on the availability of Kevin Shattenkirk.
This one’s simple: For the Bruins to make the playoffs in 2017, I really believe that starting netminder Tuukka Rask will need to post a .925 save percentage or better. But he can’t play another 60-game plus year, which is why Anton Khudobin was brought here in the first place.
OVERVIEW
I may be in the minority here, but I think it’s pretty clear that this team will be better than a lot of people want to give them credit for.
The team still their share of question marks on defense, and even up front to a far lesser degree, but the Atlantic Division remains a complete scrapheap once you leave the Sunshine State, and the Bruins are honestly just as likely to finish third as they are seventh. It’s one of those years; Montreal got older and more aggressive with the Shea Weber and Andrew Shaw pickups (a mistake the Bruins routinely made when things didn’t pan out for them following the 2013 season), and though Carey Price is still the absolute best goalie in the world, I really feel he’s going to have to be even better than he already had to be for the Habs to be anything great. The Leafs, Sabres, and Senators are still in development mode, and the Red Wings are stuck in no man’s land as they continue to lose young pieces to the waiver wire in favor of their veterans.
And with pressure on the club from ownership, it’s easy to expect some urgency out of the Bruins and their coaching staff to begin the year, urgency that will likely be bolstered by some in-season wheeling and dealing by Sweeney and Co., especially with their jobs on the line. Still, this is not a Stanley Cup contending club, not yet anyways. But they are good enough to be a playoff team, which I think they will be by way of a third-place finish in their division. So long as there’s not another Game 82 collapse.
Prediction: 95 points, third place in the Atlantic.