Oh, Those Bruins

Spoiler Alert: Depressed Hockey Post Ahead

I'm not sure how to put it, how I feel about the Bruins lately.

I'm so disappointed in them.
I don't understand them.
Watching them play frustrates me.

I read the other day that the Bruins were playing .500 hockey in January and February*. And there have been many years in my memory when the Bruins would have loved to do as well as .500, but the problem is that after winning the Stanley Cup last June, and after going a ridiculous .840 in November and December, .500 is actually pretty bad. Everything's relative.

*Which just means they won as many games as they lost.

So they haven't played well. At least, not consistently. I think consistency is the biggest thing they've lost. They can totally rule the game for whole periods, outplaying their opponents by a frankly ludicrous margin, then spend whole periods looking like a group of strangers wearing skates for the first time, trying to remember the 30-second summary of the rules they were given before being shoved out on the ice. It's baffling. They haven't even managed to be good for a while, then been bad for a while; it's been good-bad-good-bad-good-bad. Sometimes within one game.

And now, now injuries are coming to the forefront. They were very lucky earlier in the season, and any discussion of injuries usually fell back on, "Well, if Savard hadn't taken that concussion last spring, he could be playing now." But recently, Nathan Horton went out with another concussion, Johnny Boychuk missed some games ... and Rich Peverley ... and Daniel Paille ... and potentially the most serious, the second goalie (who is only a second because Tim Thomas is so good), Tuukka Rask, left yesterday's game* injured. If he's out for a while, the team could be in real trouble.

*Which the Bruins lost.

Just to mention the funny side of that situation, even if it's only funny because it's so bad, the Bruins couldn't call up the top goalie of their AHL affiliate in Providence because he's out with a wrist injury. They called up the back-up, who had been dealing with the flu, to be their back-up for today's game*.

*Which the Bruins lost.

Providence had already called up a goalie from the lower-level ECHL affiliate, on Friday, but he's only played 5 games in the AHL before, so the chances that he could jump in with Boston if needed are ... slim, shall we say. And as long as Thomas is okay, he can play, but of course they'd like to give him some rest before the playoffs, not to mention that the more tired he gets, the more it's likely that he could hurt himself.

It's not like the team is automatically doomed. There's plenty of time yet to pull themselves together. It's just that in a lot of recent games, that's what I've been saying to myself halfway through the third period: "They're only down by one (or two). There's plenty of time for them to come back, if they just start doing what they need to do. I know they can, they know what to do ... where's the team that was playing in the first period (or the second period)? Can we get them to come back?"

If is a big word, sometimes. And even though the Bruins are on top of their division, in second in the Eastern Conference, and tied for seventh place in the league, I think about how they've been playing recently, and I have a sinking feeling. I'm afraid that when I look back on this section of the season, I will remember that the word floating through my head was "clusterfuck". I hope this is a blip, but it doesn't feel like it.