Winless skid hits 10 for tail-spinning Bruins: 'We’re easy to play against'
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A once-promising season for the Boston Bruins is set to end with the team well outside the playoff picture as their eight-year postseason streak comes to an end.
The Bruins are winless in their past 10 games, picking up just one point during a skid that has seen the team drop to last in Eastern Conference.
Boston's record sat at 28-28-8 at the trade deadline and team elected to trade captain Brad Marchand to the rival Florida Panthers and defenceman Brandon Carlo to the rival Toronto Maple Leafs, signalling the start of a retooling. The team won their next two games to stay in the wild-card race, but have been unable to find a victory since.
“The other teams are just hungrier than ours,” defenceman Nikita Zadorov said after a 4-1 loss to the Montreal Canadiens on Thursday. “They want to win more, that’s the bottom line. We’re just not hard on the puck. We’re easy to play against.”
It's been 15 years since the Bruins last went winless in 10 games and their current skid is currently tied for the eighth-longest in franchise history, matching a stretch from 2010. Boston is staring down posting their lowest point total in an 82-game season since 2006-07. The team has reached the playoffs in all but two seasons since their 76-point campaign that year.
The Bruins are 30-37-9, owning 69 points entering their final six games of the season. The team fired head coach Jim Montgomery after an 8-9-1 start to the year, with interim Joe Sacco owning a 22-28-6 record since taking over.
“It’s going to take 60 minutes of consistent hockey right now,” Sacco said post-game Thursday. “And I think we have moments where we play well, but not long enough, during the course of a game. We have to be able to sustain more a 60-minute effort and I think that’s what it’s going to take.
“And we have to just understand that we have to pull out of this together. It’s not about one person or two persons trying to pull us out of it, we have to do it together as a team, but more focused on the process, how we play, and when you do that usually the score will take care of that.”
Boston would have the fourth-best lottery odds if the season ended today, behind only the Nashville Predators, Chicago Blackhawks and San Jose Sharks in the Western Conference.
The Bruins will host the Carolina Hurricanes on Saturday with a road matchup looming Sunday against the Buffalo Sabres, who are one point ahead of Boston in the Eastern Conference basement with one game in hand.