what happened

so our beloved bruins are all but dead, but they have been in my opinion since january. this is how they opened the new year- losses to toronto twice total score 15-3, they beat philly (barely 4-3), then three straight losses to ottawa, nyi and nyr. how did they do for the rest of the month of january? two wins both in shoot outs. so to summarize 3-10 in january three wins by one goal two of which were in the shoot out.

this was the most pivotal month of the season - the holidays over - the all-star break squished in and what were they able to do - not much. there were other problems this season as well but the inability to play well in the heart of the season was a killer. why did we have this problem? well there are a number of issues with this teams foundation. its young and it didnt know how to handle a full 82 game schedule. it didnt know it itself - some early season struggles i attribute to the team looking for its identity and its staff learning who to trust and who not to.

with off season pickups and/or moves this team will be a playoff team next season. the maturing, bonding and chemistry developed this season paying off. next season they will have 3-4 nhl lines and 3 legitamate nhl defensive pairs. (this season they were only playing with 2 nhl lines and 2 d pairs). with no roster player movement this team really can only make one "splash" this summer - i am hoping for a top 6 forward in the 3-4 million range. but i guess we can hold off on this talk until they officially have not made the playoffs.....