We’ve decided to try a little something different today, which is to say that there is not one obvious, dominant story in Boston sports. But this is the beauty of having the Bruins, Celtics, Patriots and Red Sox fill your screen as if on an assembly line, and so – until someone out there can offer up a better name – we’re introducing Fourthought.
There was a time not so long ago, of course, when championships in Boston felt like a birthright. That is obviously no longer true. But in the wake of the Bruins’ 2-0 loss last night to the Philadelphia Flyers at the TD Garden, one can’t help but wonder if the pendulum has swing even further in the opposite direction. The Bruins have now lost games this season to a Nashville Predators team that was previously winless and a Flyers outfit that has allowed the fifth-most goals in the NHL. Boston’s point percentage ranks 23rd in the league, tied with the moribund Buffalo Sabres. (Yuck.)
Meanwhile, the Red Sox have once again been relegated to serving as spectators during the baseball postseason, their seemingly endless rebuild matched by that of only the Patriots. That means three of the four major Boston teams now lose at least as much as they win, leaving the Celtics (who are up for sale) all alone in a rather expansive field of green.
Nonetheless, as Felger & Mazz contributor Greg Bedard put it yesterday, we here at the Sports Hub are paid to offer you both the micro and the macro depending on the circumstance. As such, as the calendar turns to November, we offer you one take each on the Bruins, Celtics, Patriots and Red Sox with the hope that, somehow and sometime soon, the winds will shift.