Playoff hunt is on
B’s dramatic season has them marked
Bruce Cassidy said something following the Bruins’ 4-3 overtime loss to the Philadelphia Flyers on Sunday that, on the surface, could be construed as either a lame-o excuse, or a downbeat, gloomy take on the overall state of affairs.
“I think we were running on fumes, and it showed,” is what the Bruins coach offered to the postgame assemblage of media types at the Wells Fargo Center, and let’s be honest, it drove Red Sox fans crazy over the past couple of seasons when since-deposed manager John Farrell offered that kind of spin, or anything even close to it.
Fans don’t like to hear that their team was tired, since the too-easy talkshow retort is, “If you’re tired, go home and go to bed.”
And players shouldn’t be exposed to such talk. It gives them something of a hall pass, signed by the coach, going into the next game.
Try to imagine the phrase “playing on fumes” passing through the lips of Patriots coach Bill Belichick in the aftermath of a loss. Go ahead, just try.
Yet when Cassidy said it, in this case, it can be looked upon as a rallying cry that Bruins folk — fans and players alike — can take into tonight’s contest against the Tampa Bay Lightning at Amalie Arena.
Let’s roll the tape back to early in the third period of the Flyers game. The Bruins were losing 3-1. Though David Pastrnak scored at 6:54 to make it a one-goal deficit, the Bruins were trailing with 9 . . . 8 . . . 7 . . . 6 . . . 5 . . . 4 seconds remaining in regulation.
And with 3.8 seconds left, the Bruins, in extraskater mode, saw Patrice Bergeron put a wrist shot past Flyers goaltender Petr Mrázek to tie it.
I’m going to skip past the part where the Flyers wind up winning the game in overtime, this because I write agenda-driven sports columns for a living and it doesn’t work with the argument I’m about to make.
Consider, then, what happened here:
1) The Bruins came back late in the game, yet again, and on a day when viewers didn’t need to hang around for the postgame show and Cassidy’s comment about playing on fumes to know they were playing on fumes. The Bruins played 16 games in March, and before the regular season ends they will have played six games in nine days.
2) It was the third straight game Bergeron scored a goal, which is significant given that it was only a month ago he was hobbling around the underbelly of the Garden on crutches and talking about the fractured right foot that earned him those crutches.
3) It was also Bergeron’s 30th goal of the campaign, giving the B’s three players who have scored 30 or more goals this season, the others being Brad Marchand (34) and David Pastrnak (33). This may not be a big deal to oldtimers who remember the days when seemingly everybody scored a ton of goals — the 1970-71 B’s had five members of the 30-or-more Club, with Derek Sanderson right behind with 29 — but it’s not a common occurrence with the modern-day Bruins. This is only the fourth time it’s happened this century.
4) Bergeron’s late goal at least earned the Bruins a point in the standings.
If this is fumes, it bodes well for an exciting Cup run.
Take it. Celebrate it. And consider this: The Bruins entered the season with a lot of us believing their best chance to go deep into springtime required an adherence to the deep-in-the-belly belief that, in hockey, “anything can happen” in the postseason.
You all know the drill: Lucky bounces, jarring injuries, questionable calls and the all-important hot goalie can conspire to derail the hopes of a surefire Stanley Cup contender.
The 2005-06 Detroit Red Wings ran up 124 points during the regular season and then were carried off in a first-round playoff coffin after being eliminated by the Edmonton Oilers in six games. Said Red Wings coach Mike Babcock when it was over: “We don’t want to be about winning in the regular season and not getting it done in the playoffs.”
And so it is now with your 2017-18 Boston Bruins. They have gone from hoping that the topsy-turvy nature of the Stanley Cup playoffs works to their favor to hoping it does not work to their undoing.
What an unexpected turn of events.
And what challenges lay ahead, now that the Bruins have changed sweaters from Hunter to Hunted.