Tag: collapse

Bruins – Deja Vu All Over Again?

The Bruins have nine games left.  They are the third seed in the Atlantic division with 82 points.  Toronto is in fourth with 81 points and they are sitting in the second Eastern wild card spot with 11 games left.

Or, that was the case before play started tonight.  Toronto just beat Columbus.

So now the Bruins are out of the Atlantic playoff spots and are sitting in the second wild card spot.  The Islanders are four points back with 11 games left.

Why do I feel like I’ve seen this movie before?

Each of the last two years the Bruins have collapsed in the last days of the regular season and dropped out of the playoffs at the last second.  Am I wrong in fearing that we’re being set up for the same fall this year?  They’ve already lost three in a row.  Is the collapse under way?  I don’t want to believe it, but damn it the evidence is clearly stacking up.  Three final stretch chokes in a row?

It can’t happen again…

Can it?

The Bruins are the Symbol of the End of All Hope in This World

They were in third place in the division with three games left. In those three games they scored a grand total of four goals over those three games and went 0-3 with only one loser point. That loser point was earned after they were eliminated from the playoffs.

Had they won out they would have made the playoffs. Had they gone 1-1-1 they would have made the playoffs. They were pretty awful against Washington. They looked like a team that had already clinched the Stanley Cup and were just coasting along and they got their asses kicked. In Florida they came out on fire but when they hadn’t won after 10 minutes or so they looked as though they stopped caring. Prior to yesterday’s game they needed to beat Tampa Bay and they needed either Ottawa or Pittsburgh to lose. Ottawa beat Philly in the afternoon. That removed one opportunity to get into the post season. Pittsburgh’s game started 30 minutes before theirs so they got to scoreboard watch as the Penguins started scoring in the second period. They watched their season go down the toilet while still being unable to produce any offense at all.

When did the collapse really start though? It started over the first few days of free agency when they failed to sign Jarome Iginla. They let their top scorer from last year go and did nothing to replace him. Then they traded a top four defenseman and never replaced him. What did they expect? The team had no offense to speak of and the defense had no depth. Then injuries came along and no player will ever use that as an excuse, but they lost their top defenseman to an injury and he was never the same again. They lost one of their top centers and he was never the same again. When they finally found a bit of a spark with a line made up of two rookies and a Lucic the coach broke up the line with three games remaining in the season when wins were desperately needed.

The general manager needs to go. I just checked headlines on NHL.com and I was stunned that he hasn’t been fired yet. The coach needs to go. A select group of high profile players who grossly underperformed need to go. A select group of lower profile players who also grossly underperformed need to go, but no one on Earth will take them.

Blow it up. This is unacceptable. I am really glad I didn’t go to any games this year or buy any merchandise and give the team any of my money. This whole season was garbage from even before the start of the first game. Everyone responsible needs to be fired.