It may be a moot point as quickly as Saturday if the Tampa Bay Lightning pick up another win, but the Bruins have a decision to make ahead of them this weekend.
Do they rest frontline players like Brad Marchand, David Pastrnak, Kevan Miller and Torey Krug that have shouldered a heavy load over the last six weeks, and do they give Tuukka Rask the weekend off to prepare for next week’s first-round playoff series?
Or do they try to fight for the top spot in the Eastern Conference and focus on getting some confidence back in their game ahead of next Thursday’s opener against a team to be determined that’s looking more and more like it’s going to the Toronto Maple Leafs?
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Certainly the Bruins are hoping for better results this weekend against Ottawa and Florida in the final two regular season games left on the schedule, but it sounds like there’s also a realistic understanding the real Bruins might not step up until the playoff bell starts ringing.
“Sometimes in the second periods [the occasional odd-man rush] can happen, but [against Florida] it happened way too many times, and that’s not winning hockey,” said Bruce Cassidy. “Not winning puck battles in front of your net; not winning hockey. Managing the puck as forwards between the blue lines; not winning hockey.
“Some of those things have crept in. With two more games that are similar to what we’ve seen where guys are in and out of the lineup, we won’t know until Thursday [when the playoffs start]. I trust this group, but it’s frustrating sometimes to see us have the will to bounce back and get into games…but not be able to start on time.”
Boston Bruins
That sentiment might be a bit concerning for a Bruins hockey team that seems to be losing steam while amidst a grueling stretch of 21 games in 39 days to close the season, and has barely been home at all over their last month of hockey. The Bruins look heavy-legged and road-weary and that might just explain why they couldn’t respond against a hungry Florida team like they had all season, and the only thing that’s going to effectively fix that is resting some regulars this weekend ahead of three practice days leading into Thursday night’s playoff opener.
Combine all of that with a Bruins team that’s clearly feeling much more comfortable than desperate, and that lack of urgency came through loud and clear when the Black and Gold dropped games on the road trip to Philly and Florida as they scrapped for a postseason spot.
“They put a playoff style out there and maybe we’re still looking for that regular season easy ice,” said David Backes. “We got Ottawa on Saturday at home and we’ve 120 minutes [of regular season hockey] to find our playoff intensity to just roll our game on a team for 60 minutes and see what their response is.
“Seeing how well and hard we played and that we were a notch above other teams on most nights, we need to get back to that to go into the playoffs with the right mentality, play well and then reach that next goal.”
So what’s the right call with the Bruins when it comes to this weekend?
The B’s should punt on anything extra they might be tempted to do for a chance at finishing first in the Atlantic Division, and should instead solely be focused on setting their whole roster up for the postseason. That means resting Rask, getting some of the B’s regulars out of the lineup both Saturday and Sunday, and getting all of their Black and Gold ducks in a row as they ready for their most highly anticipated playoffs series in at least four seasons.
The Bruins had their chance to capture the top spot in the Eastern Conference earlier this week in Tampa Bay if they truly, badly wanted to come away with home ice throughout the postseason, but they dropped that pivotal game without much in the way of a fight. The bet here is that the current three-game slide for the B’s is much more about fatigue and heightened opponents than it is about deficiencies in their game, and a hockey club setting themselves up for the postseason should do just that rather going for broke for a mere division title.