The ‘path’ noise is getting louder for the Bruins
The Bruins do not want to sell.
In fact, they have never sold at the trade deadline under current team president Cam Neely. The very worst they’ve been is ‘light buyers’, with a single addition in 2017 (Drew Stafford for a late-round pick). But earlier this month, Neely acknowledged the possibility of his team having to venture down the non-buyer path (he called it a ‘retool’). And with the Bruins on the wrong end of yet another lopsided contest Thursday night in Boston, that’s looking more and more like an inevitability for this year’s team.
When Neely first made those comments, the Bruins were coming off back-to-back victories, and against quality competition. The Bruins were also still in a playoff position, with a single-point lead over the single wild card and a two-point lead over the ninth-place club in the East. Boston’s record post-Neely comments sits, though, sits at 3-3-1, and the Bruins will begin Friday on the outside looking in in the Eastern Conference playoff race, and with a games played number that doesn’t favor ’em in any respect.
That’s trouble, and the Bruins know they’re running out of time to show otherwise.
“The only thing we can do is focus day to day. I mean, they’re going to do what they feel is necessary for the team,” B’s captain Brad Marchand said following Thursday’s loss. “All we can do is worry about our play and what we can control. We can’t control any decision that is going to be made. You know, we have to come and do a job here every day, and that’s all we can worry about right now.”
“It’s our job to get results and we know that,” Bruins alternate captain Charlie McAvoy echoed following the defeat. “That’s all we can do. We can’t worry about who’s here [or] who isn’t here. It’s always gonna fall on us to do our job, and that’s all you can ever worry about.”
At this point, ‘worry’ is the right word.
Following wins by the teams around the Bruins in the playoff race — the Lightning, Senators, and Blue Jackets all won on Thursday night, while the Islanders (winners of six straight) have now entered the conversation as a threat — the Bruins have put themselves in a spot where it truly feels like life or death for their season with that night’s result. Thursday’s slate dropped the Bruins’ odds of making the playoffs down to 29 percent at PlayoffStatus.com while MoneyPuck puts them at 19.1 percent. MoneyPuck’s model only has four Eastern Conference teams with worse odds than the Bruins as of right now, with the Canadiens at 13.7 percent, Philly at 3.5 percent, Pittsburgh at 1.5 percent, and Buffalo at 0.8 percent.
It’s entirely possible that the hole has officially been dug too deep for the Black and Gold.
“I’m not really worried about what’s being said in the media,” Marchand, who is in the final year of his contract and could potentially be one of the players involved in a deadline ‘retool’ by the Boston front office, admitted Thursday night. “At the end of the day, like I said, they’re going to make the decisions for the group that they feel is necessary [and] I have no control over that.”
The Bruins are also yet another grind of a schedule before the 4 Nations Face-Off break, as they’ll have to prove their playoff-worthiness with showdowns against the Rangers, Wild, Rangers again (this time on the road), and then the Golden Knights. Upon their return, the Bruins will have another seven games before the NHL trade deadline (March 7), but the decisions could come before then depending on where they are in the East’s playoff picture and whether or not they’ve lost ‘buy in’ from above before then.
“I’m going to worry about what’s going on in here and playing for this group,” Marchand offered. “And, as long I’m here on the Boston Bruins, that’s what I’m worried about.”