Kalman: Time For Bruins Players To Use Collapse Experiences Rather Than Hide From It
By Matt Kalman, CBS Boston
BOSTON (CBS) -- For a team that's not thinking about its late-season collapses of the past two seasons, the Bruins sure look like a team going through déjà vu.
Here's a scarier thought than the Bruins missing the playoffs again: what if they're not thinking about the past two years? What if they've forgotten how easily their season can end in mid-April?
That could explain why they lacked urgency and focus -- words that came directly from coach Bruce Cassidy after a 6-3 loss to Tampa Bay at TD Garden.
"At the end of the day I think it is a focus and it's urgency and it's understanding time and score," Cassidy said after the Bruins lost their fourth in a row. "We did not have a good comprehension of that tonight, and of late. We've let games get away."
The Bruins are three points up on the Lightning with Tampa Bay holding one game in hand. The lead on the idle New York Islanders stayed at two points, with the Islanders holding two games in hand.
Maybe instead of pretending the past two seasons didn't happen, the Bruins should use them for motivation. Because with nine games remaining and the slimmest of leads on their closest competition for a playoff spot, the Bruins played lackadaisically against a Lightning team so decimated by injuries and trades they basically suit up six NHL-caliber forwards and three NHL-caliber defensemen (and one of those defensemen was injured early in the second period and didn't return).
The Bruins led three times in the second period but only held the lead for a total of 2:43 because they allowed the Lightning to tie the score in the blink of an eye.
When the Bruins fell behind in the third period, they took dumb penalties and spent more time chirping at the Lightning than trying to get the equalizer. Brad Marchand was proud of his five shots on net after the game, but he was pointless and minus-2 and at one point Zdeno Chara had to calm him down after he was getting into some post-whistle troubles. David Backes took an ill-conceived interference penalty in the neutral zone with the Bruins trying to mount a comeback. Kevan Miller made an egregious gaffe leading up to one Tampa Bay goal.
And then there was the icing festival. The Bruins, while down just one goal, iced the puck at 9:03, 9:17 and 9:23. If they were trying to bore the Lightning to death, they didn't succeed.
"Yeah that was not what we wanted to do, obviously," center Patrice Bergeron said. "You're trying to play with the puck and we got rid of it two or three times in a row and that's again playing into their hands."
The Bruins have not been themselves lately and the only answer is that the pressure is getting to them. They have a double whammy of pressure trying to live down the past two collapses and deal with a race that almost requires perfection to get into the postseason, unless they get a lot of help. For all the influx of youth and the addition of complementary players from outside the organization, the Bruins are mainly a veteran core that's won the Stanley Cup and suffered gut-wrenching defeats. They should be used to this type of adversity and should have learned enough lessons to avoid a downward spiral.
Instead they might be losing their minds both when they have the puck and when they're challenged.
"Sometimes ... on some of the plays that we've done, we tried to do too much, or that you overreact, you try to be too aggressive and that turns out to being undisciplined," Bergeron said. "I said that the way we have to play is playing our game and that is definitely part of it and we need to be accountable."
The Bruins lost five in a row last year right around this time. They recovered and had control of their own destiny on the last day of the season before folding. Again they have plenty of time to get on track and start playing the way they did when Cassidy first took over for Claude Julien.
There's no blaming the coach anymore and the Bruins are healthy, considering the time of year. If this core can't hang on to a playoff spot again, it'll have to be broken up. Bergeron and Marchand aren't going anywhere, but David Krejci, Zdeno Chara, and even Tuukka Rask could be playing for their Boston lives.
"This is a new team, we're all excited, and if it's a young guy or a veteran guy, you have to go out there with desperation," Krejci said "You have to win more games to get in, and like I said, each guy including myself, we have to do a better job and if we do that the rest will follow and we'll get some wins."
With the exception of Bergeron, Marchand and David Pastrnak, none of the Bruins players, veteran or young, have looked all that excited to be in this playoff race. They've been a one-line team with inconsistent defense and spotty goaltending. They're a Jenga game where one piece pulled out -- a questionable penalty, a borderline hit, an unfortunate goal -- makes them topple. And once again, this is all on the players and they're going to have to suffer shame, and maybe more, if this final stretch turns into The Collapse Part III.
Matt Kalman covers the Bruins for CBSBoston.com and also contributes to NHL.com and several other media outlets. Follow him on Twitter @TheBruinsBlog.