For Bruins fans, Tuesday night may have been the night that turns any patience that may have been left and turned into utter frustration and dissapointment. A 6-1 blowout at the hands of the lowly Tampa Bay Lightning. On a night where the only highlight for the Bruins was Steven Stamkos scoring his 50th goal of the season against them, the team came out flat and never receovered. Within 4 minutes they were in a 3-0 hole, with head coach Claude Julien forced to pull veteran backup Marty Turco and replace him with the extremely fatigued and disiniterested Tim Thomas on a night where Thomas was supposed to get rest. Things didn't get much better, and Turco was returned to the net after the first period as all hope was lost when it came to winning the game or even scratching a point out of it. It was a night where not one single player could be called out and held responsible. It was a team effort, or lack theoreof. The entire team sucked. The offense was nowhere to be found, the defense left Turco and Thomas out to dry, and the only players that seemed to really care about winning were Zdeno Chara, Patrice Bergeron, Jordan Caron, and Shawn Thornton. towards the end of the first, Thornton dropped the gloves with Tampa Bay defenseman Mike Commodore, who made the mistake of obliging as he got the ever living crap kicked out of him, in order to attempt to spark something in his team. The Bruins failed to respond though, and came out just as flat, if not even more flat, in the second and third periods.
CSNNE Bruins Insider Joe Haggerty spoke to Captain Zdeno Chara yesterday at Bruins practice, where the team was preparing for tonight's game against the Florida Panthers. Chara said that the team "Needs to get angrier after they're scored on, needs to start playing more physical, and needs to get mentally tougher". Couldn't have said it any better myself Z. During yesterday's morning skate, Chara drove forward Milan Lucic hard into the boards, causing both guys to go down, and right there Chara was sending a message. A message that he is fed up with the way the team is playing and that if they're not going to hold themselves accountable, he will hold them accountable. Chara isn't normally a vocal leader, but the man was named Captain for a reason, and that reason is becoming very clear now. He leads by example, and when things go wrong, he has no problem calling guys out and speaking up in the locker room.
As of right now, the Bruins lead the Northeast Division by one point over the Ottawa Senators with just two games in hand. This team is in danger of slipping to 7th in the conference, and possibly even slippign out of the playoffs if their poor play continues. If the Bruins can get back to their grind it out, physical, in your face style of play, they can overcome their injuries for the time being and hold their lead in the division. They need to make a statement to the rest of the conference, a statement that they aren't just going to roll over and take a beating, but instead teams are going to have to give it their absolute best effort to play with them, and a statement that they are the same team that is not afraid to drop the gloves. In the past three years, there have been two games full of fights and penalties in which the Bruins showed that they not only have each others' backs, but that they aren't going to take any crap from anyone. In 2009, the Dallas Stars came to town with Sean Avery and Steve Ott. Everyone knows the story there, the Bruins didn't put up with anything and sent a message that they were not going to be an easy team to play. The same goes for last year's Montreal game. The Bruins didn't take any crap from the Habs, and ended up winning the game 6-5 while also recording a record amount of penalty minutes total in one game. So far this year, the best opportunity for that was the Vancouver game, in which the Bruins backed down and let the Canucks take it to them. They have one more game in which they can make a statement. And what better team to do it against than the Philadelphia Flyers? There has always been some bad blood between these two teams, and at this point in the season, it could be the only chance the Bruins get to finally show that theyare the same team that won the Stanley Cup last year, and that they are the same team that utterly dominated the league during the entire months of November and December.
Whatever the Bruins are going to do, they need to figure it out, and fast. Ottawa is closing in, and the Bruins could soon find themselves fighting for their playoff lives.
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