BRIGHTON, Mass – The Bruins ended the season losing four out of five games in April, and they certainly didn’t inspire confidence in sinking against the Florida Panthers in the regular season finale on Sunday night with the Eastern Conference’s top seed on the line. With so much of the five games in eight days being about tired legs, tired minds and fatigue really creeping into Boston’s game at the end of a hellacious schedule in March and April, there will be plenty of attention paid to the way the Bruins come out on Thursday night in Game 1 against the Maple Leafs.
The Bruins certainly hope that three off-days will allow the Black and Gold to re-energize and reset for the first round series against a Maple Leafs team that got the better of them three out of four times in the regular season. Bruins general manager Don Sweeney acknowledged that his hockey club wasn’t playing their best at the tail end of a brutal six weeks of intense hockey, but fully expected that switch to be flipped now that the Stanley Cup playoffs have arrived.
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“We always felt March was the daunting part of the schedule unfortunately. We were in a pretty good position, but we were still pushing forward. That’s the type of team that we had. They wanted to win, and we had the chance right up until the final bell to try to keep climbing the standings, and meet every challenge,” said Sweeney. “We fell short in that regard, but I think they’re ready to look forward and hopefully they’ll play their best hockey, because that’s what it’s going to take. The league itself, the parity and the races, the amount of points it takes just to get in, it’s a grind.
“You start the year and realize you have to make 100 points, close to 100 points to make the playoffs now. It’s a difficult task. You run through the injuries that we’ve had, the depth question was asked earlier. Part of that was March. We knew what we were going to go through. Players deserve an awful lot of credit and the coaches deserve a lot of credit. Now hopefully, as I said, we have to play our best hockey.”
The real question for the Bruins is exactly how long it’s going to take them to ratchet up to playing “their best hockey.” If the Bruins hit the ice for Game 1 with a healthy group ready to get back to their level of work in November through February, that will bode well for the Black and Gold’s chances for the first round and beyond.
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If the Bruins hit the ice for Game 1 against the Maple Leafs and play with the same level of lackadaisical impact and so-so compete level as they have to date in April, it could be an awfully big uphill climb for the Black and Gold in a postseason that might just be getting started too soon for them
