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The Boston Bruins left the ice with a loss for the 31st time in 2014-15 by way of Tuesday night’s 2-1 defeat at the hands of Vancouver Canucks at TD Garden. 22 of those 31 defeats have come in regulation, while the other nine have been via overtime or the shootout (the Bruins have lost six of those in a row, by the way). The losses have varied in style, too -- from soul-crushing to improbable -- with last night’s coming in spite of a 41-shot barrage on the Vancouver net.
Boston’s loss also prevented them to gaining some points on their tight single-point edge over the Florida Panthers and four-point lead over the Philadelphia Flyers, both of whom lost on Tuesday night as well, for the second wild card in the East. Florida and Philadelphia both lost on Thursday night as well, failing to gain any ground on the idle Bruins, but another team has emerged on the Bruins’ heels, as Ottawa’s victory over LA moved them within five points of the Bruins, with a game in hand.
If it weren’t for bad luck, these Bruins wouldn’t have any luck.
But help is on the way.
The Black and Gold have caught a slight break with David Krejci’s knee injury, which will sideline him for the next four to six weeks. If the recovery’s long enough, the Bruins have placed the 29-year-old center on the long-term injured reserve for perhaps the remainder of the regular season, thus freeing up his $5.25 million cap-hit for penny-pinching general manager Peter Chiarelli to acquire some much needed assets before the cap-less postseason. It’s the loophole the B’s need. Of course, in true 2014-15 fashion, the Chicago Blackhawks, in a similar cap predicament, can now do the same with Patrick Kane’s $6.3 million cap-hit following a Tuesday night injury that will keep No. 88 out of action for the next 12 weeks. They’re now your competition for top-line talents.
Again, if not for bad luck, this year’s Bruins would have no luck.
And though they’ve done their best to trudge through the slumps and bruises of what’s perhaps the most disappointing regular season in this regime’s eight-year reign of dominance in the East, it’s taxing to feel so close yet so close as often as the Black and Gold have.
“We never seem to catch too many breaks and once we kind of feel on track things have fallen apart, so it’s been really tough,… B’s goaltender Tuukka Rask said on Tuesday. “We’re still in a playoff spot, that’s a positive thing. We have to make sure we keep playing hard and good things can happen.…
It’s the copout the Bruins don’t want to settle for, but it’s true, the bounces have gone any which way but theirs since Day 1 of this season it seems. Their 8.25 shooting percentage is the seventh-worst in the league, and that’s a figure that does not include the, oh I don’t know, five thousand disallowed goals or three billion posts that the Bruins have hit this season. It’s a major change from last year’s 9.84 shooting percentage, which finished the season as the fourth-best in the league. If this percentage holds at 24th in the league, it would be the B’s worst shooting percentage in a season since 2009-10’s league-worst 7.55, a year salvaged by the spectacular goaltending of Rask, a rookie at the time.
But the Bruins don’t want to rely on the bounces that haven’t gone their way. Not yet, anyways.
“We can’t rely on luck. We have to rely on our abilities to play, play strong and then usually a lucky bounce will happen,… Boston captain Zdeno Chara said. “We can’t be just hoping, wishing for lucky bounces. We have to play strong like we have the last few games, eventually it will start going in.…
And so begins a back-to-back set against New Jersey and Arizona that should present the Bruins with more bounces than they’re accustomed to, with NJ coming into tonight’s game allowing the eight-most shots against per game on average, while the ‘Yotes boast the sixth-worst mark in that category.
In essence, this should be a weekend of the Bruins taking care of business, and more importantly, creating a slight bit of separation between the ‘Cats, Flyers, and now Sens, and themselves.
But if 2014-15 has taught the Black and Gold anything, it’s that anything that can go wrong, probably will go wrong. So, yeah, don’t add those four points to the ledger just yet.
B’s netminder Tuukka Rask is under the weather according to Claude Julien, and the Boston coach says that he doesn’t even want Rask on the bench if he’s still ill by pregame. That’s prompted the Bruins to recall goaltender Jeremy Smith from the American Hockey League, and likely give the start to Niklas Svedberg for tonight’s game. Smith, an AHL journeyman in recent years, has posted a strong 14-8-4 record and impressive .931 save percentage for Providence this season.
The presumed starter, the 25-year-old Svedberg, has played just 80 minutes in 2015, stopping 21-of-24 shots against, with his last win coming by way of a 14-save shutout against the Devils back on Jan. 8. Svedberg has a 5-5-0 record, 2.43 goals against average, and .915 save percentage this year.
New Jersey will counter with Cory Schneider. Though he has just 22 wins in 52 games played this season, the 28-year-old Schneider has posted an impressive .926 save percentage on a particularly dreadful Devils squad, and comes into action with a dominant 1.78 goals against average and .935 save percentage at the Prudential Center this season. Schneider took the loss in his last outing, however, stopping 23-of-25 in a 3-1 loss to Calgary on Wednesday night, and sports a 1-2-0 career record and .914 save percentage in three regular-season contests against the Bruins.
- B’s center Patrice Bergeron has six goals and 10 points in his last 12 games.
- Boston forward David Pastrnak has just two goals in his last 16 games played.
- Milan Lucic has eight goals and 16 points in 25 career games against the Devils.
- New Jersey’s Michael Cammalleri has five goals in his last four games.
- Patrik Elias has 24 goals and 46 points in 62 career games versus Boston.
Other news and notes
The Bruins come to New Jersey without Krejci (knee), Kevan Miller (shoulder, done for the year), and Gregory Campbell (upper-body, expected to be out at least a week), and will likely take to the ice for tonight’s game with Craig Cunningham as the healthy scratch.
Boston has taken both of the prior head-to-heads this season, outscoring New Jersey 7-2.
This game could also serve as one last in-person scouting chance for B’s general manager Peter Chiarelli. The Devs are clearly going to be selling off some veteran pieces before Monday’s deadline, and the Bruins could have a use for inexpensive rental chips like Marty Havlat and old friend Michael Ryder, or defenseman Marek Zidlcky.
So, Thursday was weird. Here’s why: Both of the Bruins’ top-six right wingers from the 2013 Stanley Cup Final were traded, and neither by the Bruins. New Jersey sent 43-year-old Jaromir Jagr to Florida, while Nathan Horton (who will in all likelihood never play again) was sent to Toronto in exchange for David Clarkson. When you sit down and think about it, it’s just a really weird couple of years in Boston, man.
Thinking about the Horton situation will never fail to bum me out, just because he was such a great talent, and a genuinely nice person off the ice. He would have been an excellent piece for that Columbus franchise, and it’s been unbelievably sad to see his career take these turns.
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