On Monday, David Pastrnak said he "absolutely" believed the Bruins had done enough this season to prove themselves worthy of additions before Friday's 3 p.m. trade deadline.
On Thursday night, Pastrnak and his teammates did nothing to help that case, leaving them in a tenuous position as general manager Don Sweeney weighs his options on deadline day.
Given the circumstances, Thursday's 6-3 loss to the Nashville Predators – a game they trailed 5-1 before a couple garbage time goals in the third period – might go down as Boston's worst of the season. It's not just that they got run off the ice. It's that they got run off the ice by a bad team that already began selling.
The Predators had already traded four players off their roster. They entered Thursday having lost five of their last six games. Ryan O'Reilly, their best player, did not play – perhaps because of a recent facial injury, or perhaps as trade protection ahead of another deadline deal.
There is something to be said for Nashville's influx of young players trying to take advantage of their opportunity and win NHL jobs. Nonetheless, this was a game the Bruins simply needed to win.
They needed to make a closing argument to their GM. They needed to maintain their lead for the final wild card spot, which is now down to just one point with Columbus winning Thursday night. They needed to snap their five-game road losing streak.
Instead, they got embarrassed. They fell behind 1-0 when Joonas Korpisalo got beat five-hole on a long slap shot by Nicolas Hague. Pastrnak overcommitted to the puck on the backcheck and left Hague wide open.
Early in the second period, Pastrnak committed a brutal turnover on the power play and handed the Predators a shorthanded 2-on-1 that Matthew Wood finished off. Morgan Geekie cut it to 2-1 with a power-play goal, but then the wheels completely fell off in the final 10 minutes of the second period.
The Bruins got caught scrambling in their own zone as Erik Haula made it 3-1. A careless goalie interference penalty from Tanner Jeannot set the Predators up for a power-play goal to make it 4-1. Poor defensive-zone coverage led to a wide-open Roman Josi one-timer, a net-front tip for Wood after getting inside position on Charlie McAvoy, and a fifth Nashville goal.
When it was all said and done, the Bruins had been outshot 17-6 and outscored 4-1 in an absolutely disastrous second period – probably the worst period of Boston's season given the timing and the opponent.
Now, all they can do is sit and wait on Friday to see what Sweeney decides to do. Sweeney said on Monday that he would like to add, but that he wouldn't be "as aggressive and active" as past years and would keep "an eye towards" the future as well as the present.
Maybe one game – even one as bad as Thursday's – shouldn't change that, but it would be hard to blame Sweeney if he does decide to sell off a couple pieces. Since returning from the Olympic break, the Bruins have not exactly made a convincing case that they're capable of doing any kind of damage in the playoffs.
They're now 2-2-0 since the break, with only one of those games coming against a team currently in the playoffs. They haven't played especially well in any of the four, needing their goalie to stand on his head in both wins (Korpisalo against Columbus, Jeremy Swayman against Pittsburgh).
Relying on your goalies to stand on their head isn't exactly the most sustainable formula. And when the Bruins' goaltending has slipped at all this season, a lot of flaws get exposed, just as they did Thursday night. You start to see why this team ranks third-worst in high-danger chances allowed and dead last in expected goals against.
And if you have those kinds of fatal flaws, can you still be worth investing in at the trade deadline? Would it be more prudent to sell and continue to accrue assets for the future? Is standing pat and just riding out what has mostly been a fun season the way to go?
Those are the questions facing Sweeney on Friday, and they're questions that got even tougher to answer Thursday night.