Luck in Short Supply for Bruins in 4-3 Loss to Rangers: Fan’s Take

Welcome to day 52 since two consecutive Boston Bruins wins. How does it feel to be in this position? How does it feel to watch as the team finds some way, in pretty much every single game, to be completely unraveled like a badly-knitted sweater? How does it feel to see key players and people say the same things after every loss, but without meaningful results? It's not much fun, is it?

This game began badly with two quick Rangers goals scored while some fans were probably still tuning in to NBC. Ruslan Fedotenko and Carl Hagelin both beat Tim Thomas and forced the Bruins to use their timeout in the first period. The timeout did seem to inspire the Bruins for a time, though. Benoit Pouliot broke an eight-game scoreless streak with a goal scored not long after the timeout.

Even before the sudden two-goal setback, though, Lane MacDermid made a splash in his call-up from Providence. He took on tough guy Mike Rupp and really held his ground against him, taking Rupp down to the ice after having his helmet knocked off his head. Keep in mind this was just his first shift of his first game. This game was very physical overall, perhaps part of it due to some Bruins frustration—Milan Lucic and Gregory Campbell were both involved in some dust-ups later on in the game.

The end of the first period was held over until the second to repair a broken pane of glass. In the real official second period, with the sheet of ice still pretty freshly resurfaced, Jordan Caron broke through and scored his fourth goal of the season. With that, the Bruins took a hopeful 2-2 tie into the third period, but would soon meet their unraveling.

At first it looked like the unraveling would be Marian Gaborik's goal, scored while one side of the net was wide open because everyone else had gathered on the other side. That was pretty bad and a defensive failing the likes of which we've seen quite a lot recently. But what really put the nail in the coffin and ensured that no points in the standings would come from this game was when, after David Krejci scored and tied it again, the Bruins managed to hold this score for just 39 seconds before Derek Stepan broke the tie and got the game-winning goal.

Thirty-nine seconds. It takes longer to brush your teeth than it does for the Bruins to lose a lead these days. Worse yet, Jack Edwards later said that Thomas couldn't see Stepan because of a screen. However, if you watch the video of the goal, Stepan has lots of space to snap off his shot while Boston's defense looks on, as if to cheer him to victory, instead of trying to help somehow. (Chronic under-performer Joe Corvo was on the ice for that goal, of course. When will they make this guy a healthy scratch already?) I don't see much of a screen there. It seems like a lousy excuse for a lousy goal and very unlike Thomas to use that excuse.

I'd personally like to see more anger from people on the team. This is not a good record the Bruins are building. Surely someone has taken note of the five shutouts in February or the W-L-W-L-W-L-L record by now? When the Chicago Blackhawks were mired in a frustrating losing streak in February, at one point captain Jonathan Toews said that they didn't deserve to win with the way they were playing. There have been no such declarations from anyone inside the Bruins. In fact, coach Claude Julien was proud of this game.

Chew on that for a minute. Going down 2-0 early, not managing unusually kind rebounds from Henrik Lundqvist, fighting to tie it twice and losing a tie in less time than it takes to heat up dinner is what passes for pride these days in the Bruins organization. No wonder they're in trouble.

I have a book called Full 60+ to History about the Bruins' run to the Stanley Cup last year. Remember that slogan? It was all about the team playing well for every single minute it could take to win the game. It's a shame the team itself seems to have forgotten their own slogan so quickly.

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