The Bruins are starting to feel the heat in the standings after 5-game slide
BOSTON — The “Fire Sweeney!” chants rang through TD Garden, loudly, and on multiple occasions.
Likely not loud enough for Charlie Jacobs to hear up in Buffalo. There’s a quicker way to light the beacons from Causeway Street to all the way to Deeridge Farm, and that’s for the Bruins to spiral out of the playoff picture entirely.
They’re teetering dangerously close to that, after losing for the fifth straight game on Tuesday, a 4-0 shutout defeat to Connor McDavid and the Edmonton Oilers. The B’s have one point in their last five, an overtime loss to the Islanders. They are now just one point ahead of the team they’ll be facing in two of the next three games, the Tampa Bay Lightning. Sandwiched in between is what’s likely to be another mauling at the hands of the Florida Panthers.
Hug your loved ones.
Entering Wednesday, the Bruins will hold a flimsy one-point lead over the Lightning for third place in the Atlantic Division. They’re only three points ahead of the Blue Jackets and Penguins in the race for the second Wild Card. The Ottawa Senators and Montreal Canadiens are only four points back. Ottawa, which hosts Boston a week from Saturday, has four games in hand and a better point percentage at the moment (.526 versus .523).
The Bruins’ players can’t exactly scoreboard-watch or start to sweat the point totals. Their focus should be on winning as many games as possible in the first place, and the standings would take care of themselves. But it’s the tough reality that they’re beginning to face. They have competition for their possible playoff spots, and they won’t hold their place in line if they don’t get their game together.
“We understand the situation we’re in,” said Brad Marchand. “We understand we can’t give points away and we need to be better. But, I don’t think we look where we’re at and panic, by any means. We’re not that far out of moving up in our position in our division. You look at the teams we’re playing in the next little bit [of the schedule] – we need to be better, for sure.
“We cannot continue to slip and give points away with the position we’re in. But we’re not panicking by any means.”
The Bruins fell out of what needs to be their identity every single night, which is a tight defensive game. Charlie Coyle lamented that the Bruins strayed away from “what makes us a good hockey team.” Head coach Joe Sacco identified an inability to protect goaltender Jeremy Swayman as a key reason for Tuesday’s defeat.
They better get back to that structure in a hurry. And as Marchand put it, remain “committed to it” for the rest of their schedule. Because it’s not like they’re all of a sudden going to start wearing out the red lamp.
The Bruins may be better than Columbus, Pittsburgh, Ottawa, and Montreal based on recent track record. But their actual on-ice performance suggests they’ve slipped into that tier in the Eastern Conference. If they don’t get their asses in gear, they could end up falling behind them.
Ironically, maybe the “Fire Sweeney” chants would die down at that point. Because those fans decided to stay home.
That’s their only recourse to engender real change in the Bruins organization. Which feels like it’s going to be needed more than ever, if these problems persist, and the Bruins miss the playoffs for the first time in almost a decade.
It’s feeling more like a possibility with every passing dud.
Matt Dolloff is a writer and digital content producer for 98.5 The Sports Hub. Read all of his articles here.