Bruins can clinch playoffs tonight
Boston looks to vanquish Devils
The only thing standing in the way of a Bruins playoff berth would be a collapse of calamitous proportions similar to the disaster that was the 1978 Red Sox, who blew a 14game lead to the New York Yankees.
The Bruins need just one point in their final six regular season games, or the New York Rangers need to punt away just one point in their remaining four games, for the B’s to get in.
Having had our youth scarred by the legendary comeback by Yankees, we suggest the B’s do everything they can to get that point as soon as Monday in New Jersey to snuff out any hope for the Rangers, with whom the B’s have two games later this week.
But let’s do something Bruce Cassidy and his players cannot, which is assume they make the playoffs, and do so fairly quickly. What next?
The B’s still have an opportunity to climb in the East Division standings. They trail the Islanders for third place by one point with a game in hand. They are three points with a game in behind the second-place Capitals for home ice in the first round. Even first place in the division is not that much of a stretch, as they trail the Penguins by five points with two games in hand.
On the one hand, it would stand to reason that the four presumptive playoff teams are so close and that the buildings are so empty that seeding and home ice advantage aren’t as important as they normally would be.
But while the B’s (16- 6-3 at home, 14- 8-3 on the road) and Caps (15-7-3, 177-2) have similar records at home and on the road, the same is not true for the Pens and Islanders.
If the season ended today, the B’s would face the Pens in the first round. Pittsburgh owns a 20- 4-2 home record and a rather pedestrian 14-11-1 mark on the road. Though the B’s hung two of the four home losses on the Pens and took the season series, 5-3, it might be preferable to avoid them in the first round if they can’t in fact overtake them. The Isles, meanwhile, are 20-3-3 at home and 11-12-2 on the road. The B’s have had decidedly less success at Nassau Coliseum than in Pittsburgh, having suffered three of their 14 regulation losses there, as well as an L in a shootout. Getting home ice advantage in any possible matchup against them would seem like a good idea, too.
You only have to look at the B’s two Game 7s of the Stanley Cup Finals in the last decade — a win in Vancouver in 2011, a loss at home to St. Louis in 2019 — to realize home ice is not the be-all/end-all. Then again, you can look at Toronto’s three Game 7 meltdowns at the Garden in the last decade and acknowledge it’s not completely insignificant.
Cassidy acknowledged the obvious difference this year with home ice as opposed to other seasons, but he feels it still matters.
“I would think it’s a little bit less. You don’t have the same amount of fans, but I think if you asked every team, they’d rather have it, simply for the comforts of home,” said
Cassidy on Sunday before the team took off for New Jersey. “It’s only one extra (home) game and people talk about the COVID restrictions. When you’re on the road, you can’t really leave the hotel and when you’re at home you have a little more ability to move around, so that could be good for you mentally. But I think once the playoffs start, it’s not a bubble situation where you know you’re going in there for what could be two months. You’re going on the road for two games, right? So you’re in and out for three or four days. You’re there to focus on the task at hand anyway. … But I think just the comforts of playing in your own rink, sleeping in
your own bed still matter. So I think if you asked our guys, we’d rather have it. And you usually want it for the Game 7. Early on in a series, teams don’t really care where they’re playing. But it is important for the last game, so that’s when it comes in to play more than other times. So no different than any other year in that regard.”
Whenever they do clinch (again, assuming), then the question becomes — especially after such an arduous season — does rest for certain regulars become more important than going all-out for home ice? Keep in mind, there is no start date yet for the playoffs. The B’s final game of the season is on May 11, but the Vancouver Canucks are not scheduled to finish until May 19, so it’s entirely feasible that the U. S.-based teams will have some extra rest before the playoffs begin.
Cassidy, understandably, was not ready to say how the team would handle the post-clinching plan. He may have grown up a fan of the Cincinnati Reds and not the Red Sox, but he knew enough not to count that particular chicken before it’s hatched.
Said Cassidy: “We want to clinch first, hopefully (Monday) night and then we’ll start addressing that. Then we’ll see.”
Odds and ends
One thing the B’s need, which they haven’t had since mid-February, is a fully healthy defense corps. They’re close. Brandon Carlo, who has played only four periods of hockey since March 5, will return either Monday or Tuesday. Cassidy said Carlo will play one of the back-to-back games and Kevan Miller, whose surgically repaired knee won’t allow him to play both ends of back-to-backs, will play in the other. Cassidy wasn’t sure yet who would get which game. …
Tuukka Rask will get the start on Monday but the Tuesday starter, either Jeremy Swayman or Jaroslav Halak, was still up in the air. A guess here would be if the B’s clinch on Monday, then Tuesday’s game could be a chance to get Halak some work. …
Chris Wagner, who was scratched on Saturday with an undisclosed injury, skated in the B’s optional practice and will be available for Monday, though Cassidy said a decision had not been yet on who’ll play on that fourth line.