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Right now Bruins fans and players should be San Jose Sharks fans, and not just because they want to marvel at Joe Thornton’s beard or make some sort of cockamamie comparison between goaltenders Tuukka Rask and Martin Jones (where are my Martin Jones truthers right now?).
No the Bruins, having disposed of the Carolina Hurricanes with a sweep capped in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference final on Thursday, should want the Sharks to close out the St. Louis Blues as quickly as possible in order to make sure the Stanley Cup Final begins without no more than a week from now. That's a ridiculous amount of time to have to kill between series, but anything longer could become hazardous to the Bruins' chances of hoisting the Cup.
The Sharks lead the best-of-7 series 2-1 over the Blues heading into Game 4 on Friday.
Not long after the Bruins eliminated the Hurricanes, Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy was already thinking about how he was going to keep his team, which has won seven games in a row, sharp.
"That's a long stretch for us, from typically what we've had," he said. "We'll sit down, probably make a call or two to someone who's been down this road, see how they handled it.
"We do have the Black Aces [a group of players from the Providence Bruins]. Do we scrimmage one day to keep the edge? But even then, if you scrimmage are guys really going to be physical against one another? They're not.
"I don't have a great answer right now, that's why we'll sit down internally and see what the best fit is and ask the guys in the room."
We’ve seen the Bruins’ last two victims in the Stanley Cup playoffs thrown off by their own success and long layoffs. The Columbus Blue Jackets’ “reward” for shocking the top-seeded Tampa Bay Lightning in the first round was eight days off before they got to start their second-round series with Boston.
The Bruins outshot the Blue Jackets 14-4 in the first period of Game 1 and took a 1-0 lead on their way to a 3-2 overtime victory. Despite forcing overtime, the Blue Jackets never hit high gear in that contest.
“You know, we started a little bit slow, just the rust, you know. I think everyone saw that coming,” Columbus defenseman Seth Jones said after that first game. “We tried to battle through it, [goalie Sergei Bobrovsky] kept us in it, but second period on, seemed to have a little bit of jump, little bit of legs, seemed to create some chances and read them pretty well, so I like the direction we went in throughout the game, I think.”
Next up, the Hurricanes, who went from a seven-game first-round win against Washington to a four-game sweep of the New York Islanders in the second round. The Hurricanes got five days off before they started up in Boston.
The Hurricanes outshot Boston 10-8 in the first period and went to the intermission tied 1-1, but they weren’t sharp throughout that game, which the Bruins won 5-2.
Carolina raised its game in the second period, but then took some dopey penalties and teetered out in the third period.
“For twenty minutes we [played our game],” Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour said after that Game 1 loss. “Our second period was fine, we got skating. First period we came out slow. Third period obviously the penalties put us back on our heels right from the start and we never recovered.”
With more time off, the Blue Jackets had to get creative. They had an intra-squad scrimmage that they allowed fans to watch, in addition to a few days off and a few days of practice. With less time to work with, the Hurricanes filled their lengthy time between series with practices and off days.
Should the Sharks win in five games, there’s a chance the Cup final could open as soon as Thursday, meaning the Bruins will have been off one week. Even if they postponed the series longer than that, the Bruins and Sharks would both be heading into the series with a longer period of time off than they’d usually want.
Anything longer from the West series and we could be looking at a 10- or 11-day break for the Bruins, while the Sharks or Blues would have fewer days off. Boston might want to consider heading up to Lake Placid (memories of 2011) or some rink in the woods of Vermont to avoid losing focus and sharpness while sitting around at home.
Whatever Cassidy and the Bruins brass comes up with the prevent stagnation, it’ll be easier to get it to work if the Sharks win the West sooner rather than later.
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