It was a good question from my Skate Podcast co-host Bridgette Proulx, asked late Thursday night minutes after the conclusion of the Boston Bruins’ sixth straight loss.
“Florida has been the knockout punch for the Bruins the last two playoffs, but could they be the knockout punch in the regular season if they lose this upcoming game?” she asked. (Listen to the full episode above.)
The Bruins are in an increasingly dire position, slipping outside the playoff field and all the way down to 11th place in the Eastern Conference in points percentage after Thursday’s 4-1 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning.
The next opponent on the schedule is just about the last one the Bruins would want to see right now: the Florida Panthers, the team that has ended their season the last two years and has already beat them twice this season.
Literally, the Panthers cannot actually end the Bruins’ season on Saturday afternoon. There are too many games left, and the Bruins are still just mere percentage points out of a playoff spot (they have a .511 points percentage, compared to eighth-place Ottawa’s .513).
Figuratively, though? Yeah, this feels about as do-or-die as it gets in January. The six-game losing streak is already the Bruins’ longest since 2015. If it gets to seven on Saturday, it would be their longest since 2010.
There have not been any real shakeups during this losing streak, which is pretty shocking in and of itself. Maybe there’s something to the idea that the Bruins wouldn’t want to trade or waive someone right before or during the team’s moms trip for this two-game Florida swing. But if Saturday goes poorly, it would be just about impossible to justify not doing *something* when they return home, especially with two days off before they face the Lightning again on Tuesday.
What that something is, and who’s doing it is a mystery. Interim head coach Joe Sacco could at least try shaking up the lineup. There have only been minor tweaks during this losing streak – Johnny Beecher in for Marc McLaughlin, a switch to the defense pairings here, a swap of the power-play units there. He tried the latter Thursday night and was promptly rewarded with a David Pastrnak turnover that led to a shorthanded goal against.
Of course, there’s only so much Sacco can do without a change to the roster itself. General manager Don Sweeney continues to be reluctant to call up anyone from Providence, for reasons that continue to remain unclear. The Bruins have scored one goal or fewer in four of these six losses.
Sweeney also said when he fired Jim Montgomery in mid-November that there would be “continued changes across the board” if the team’s play didn’t improve. It did improve – for a time – but the team’s collapse since Christmas would certainly seem to warrant whatever other changes he may have had in mind.
That could be a trade. The Bruins have certainly popped up in plenty of rumors. We explored the possibility of a blockbuster deal for Elias Pettersson or J.T. Miller on Thursday. More likely it would be something smaller. TSN’s Darren Dreger said Thursday night that Sweeney is “open for business.”
Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman brought up another interesting possibility on Friday’s “32 Thoughts” podcast: a second in-season coaching change, believe it or not.
“I don’t know what their plans are coaching-wise. I don’t know if they give Sacco the rest of the season,” Friedman said. “But it all has made me wonder, if they are considering at all another coach here, do they go for that person now? Like, I wrote in the blog this week that if I were Chicago, I wouldn’t let [David] Carle get to market. And somebody said to me, ‘You could’ve written the same thing about Boston.’ I think Boston is kind of in shock about where they are.
“If there is someone who they’re maybe thinking about being a full-time coach – A, if it’s not Sacco, and B, if it’s someone who’s available – does Boston all of a sudden look and say, if we’re gonna commit to this person, do we try to go for them now?”
David Carle would be the University of Denver’s head coach, who is coming off a second straight gold medal at the World Junior Championships and has also led Denver to two national titles in the last three years. The 35-year-old is probably the best hockey coach not currently in the NHL, but it remains unclear if he has any desire to jump to the NHL at this point.
Another coaching change would certainly be interesting, but it still wouldn’t address the team’s clearly flawed roster. How Sweeney addresses that problem, and how much latitude he even has to do so are more pressing questions.
Does he believe this can still be a playoff team, and one that could make some noise, with a trade or two? Does he believe he needs to try to make the playoffs in order to save his job? Would ownership allow him to trade away future assets if they are having any doubts about Sweeney and the direction of this team?
On the flip side, would Sweeney be willing or able to sell players for picks or prospects if he concludes that this is simply a lost season? If he did, would he be signing his own pink slip given that missing the playoffs has been a death knell for previous GMs under the Jacobs’ ownership?
There are a lot of questions and not a lot of answers for the Bruins right now. Maybe they will surprise everyone, pull out a big win over the rival Panthers on Saturday, and start to turn things around. Or maybe the Panthers will figuratively, if not literally, knock them out again.