Big opportunity awaits
Underdog B’s relish playoff trip
The Elias Sports Bureau probably cannot confirm or refute this, but we suspect that sports history was made at the Garden last evening — a scenario that had never before taken place.
A coach was asked about which team he’d prefer to face in the playoffs. And he gave an answer. After the Bruins’ 3-1 loss to the Washington Capitals, interim coach Bruce Cassidy was asked that question by a reporter. It was an entirely pertinent inquiry, since the B’s went home last night not knowing if they’ll face the Caps or Ottawa Senators in Round 1 of the playoffs this week.
Indeed, they may not know until tonight.
But there can’t be much mystery that a matchup against Washington, a club that probably boasts the most talent, depth and balance in the NHL, would be daunting — more so than a meeting with the Senators, even if they did go 4-0-0 vs. the Bruins this season.
But if there’s any question you can expect a coach to duck, it’s that one about picking a preferred opponent. Not Cassidy.
“I don’t like to go down that road,” Cassidy said. “We’re going to be confident no matter who we play. In a nutshell: Washington is the better team, I would go on record in saying that. Ottawa is playing very good hockey now. We’ve had a tough time with them. So they both present challenges. It’s out of our hands. We get what we get.”
Just the fact that question is being asked is monumentally significant for the Bruins, after two years of talking at season’s end mostly about failure. The B’s may well be a one-and-done playoff participant, but just qualifying for the tournament can be a giant step in the right direction.
“I think that everybody is obviously excited to be back in the playoffs,” Bruins captain Zdeno Chara said. “I think that excitement and energy will boil up more next week. This team came through some ups and downs throughout the whole season. We showed that we created some identity and built some resiliency. So, yeah, it’s exciting.
“For most of the guys in the room, it’s going to be their first experience in the NHL playoffs. But at the same time, everybody has to go through it for the first time.”
It was suggested to Chara that the Bruins, after two years out of the postseason, need to do well in these playoffs. His response, basically: There will be 16 teams that feel exactly that way.
Indeed, there should not be a hungrier club in the league than the Capitals — who, for all their immense talents, have annually fallen short in the spring. Their window of opportunity is still wide open, but that won’t be the case forever — and one of these years they have to take advantage and win a Cup. The Caps certainly looked hungry yesterday.
“Everybody has to do well,” Chara said. “Everybody has to play their best, no matter who you play. If you want to succeed, you have to be at your best — you have to do whatever it takes. That’s the bottom line: It’s going to be a battle.”
Chara understands how different it is in the playoffs, how it demands immense dedication and sacrifice. Many of the Bruins have no idea, simply because they haven’t experienced it. We will see how quickly, or if, they figure it out.
“Everybody has to get ready themselves, (do) what they have to do to be in the zone for the playoffs,” Chara said. “It’s not necessarily that you have to have special one-on-one meetings for that — you’ve just got to know that it’s an important part of the year.”
But Chara clearly likes what this team has become in the past several weeks, and believes good things may happen over the coming weeks.
“I like how we bounce back from adversity,” he said. “I like how our power play picked up from the beginning of the year. I like how we take a lot of pride in how we kill penalties. There’s a lot of things I like. We’ve just got to keep all those things and bring them into the playoffs.”
No matter whom they play.