The Bruins have lost six games in a row for the first time since March 2015.
COMMENTARY
The last time the Bruins dropped six games in a row, it was March 2015 — when a retooling Bruins roster mired in no-man’s land was charting a course towards a failed postseason bid.
The more things change …
The 2024-25 Bruins have now found themselves cut from a similar cloth — with a season that once started with so much promise teetering on the brink of disaster.
Once seemingly revitalized after Joe Sacco took the reins of a rudderless roster in mid-November, the wheels have now fallen off once again for a team hindered by both poor roster construction and a carousel of underperforming regulars.
The numbers aren’t pretty after Boston’s latest letdown — a 4-1 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning.
The Bruins have yet to post a win since the calendar flipped to 2025, with Boston’s lone win since the holiday break coming on Dec. 28 against a goalie in Columbus’ Daniil Tarasov sporting a .857 save percentage.
Over this six-game slide, the Bruins have been outscored, 24-11, and have boasted just 11:05 of lead time.
A two-goal cushion for the Bolts after 40 minutes all but sealed Boston’s fate, with the Bruins now scoring just one goal (or fewer) in 13 of their 44 games so far this season.
Boston’s 31st-ranked power play has not converted a bid in eight games, while only seven teams have scored fewer 5-on-5 goals than Boston this season.
Add in a 25th-ranked penalty kill (75.9 percent), a porous zone defense, and a pedestrian season from Jeremy Swayman (.893 save percentage), and the Bruins are now clinging to a Wild-Card spot — with both the Blue Jackets and Penguins just a point behind them in the standings.
The Bruins are one of just three teams in the current playoff picture with a negative goal differential. But their minus-27 mark stands as the worst in the entire Eastern Conference — and the fourth-lowest result across the entire NHL.
In other words, the 2023-24 Bruins might just be what they are this season: a middling team bracing for either a long offseason, or a quick first-round ouster.
It’s been a frustrating season all along for the Bruins — a sentiment further fueled by Boston’s inaction when it comes to shaking up an underperforming lineup at this critical juncture.
The need for a change — be it a call-up from Providence or a message-sending trade — has been long overdue.
A game removed from fans calling for the firing of Don Sweeney at TD Garden, the Bruins made no lineup tweaks before charting a course down to Florida for a pair of matchups against the Bolts and Panthers.
While the Bruins’ top brass grapple with what might be the correct (albeit painful) course of action when it comes to potentially selling off pieces before the March 7 deadline, the unwillingness to call up young talent in hopes of a short-term spark remains puzzling.
It remains to be seen just what youngsters like Matt Poitras, Fabian Lysell, and Georgii Merkulov have to offer at the NHL level — and whether it’s just wishful thinking that these unproven forwards have the capabilities to right the ship on a punchless forward corps.
But the Bruins also won’t have those answers if they continue to let them marinate in Providence — while either players not long for a black-and-gold sweater like Oliver Wahlstrom or an underperforming regulars like Trent Frederic continue to not move the needle.
Yes, we all know the flaws when it comes to Boston’s presumed next wave of youngsters.
Poitras needs to avoid putting himself in vulnerable positions and put on some pounds. Both Merkulov and Lysell have work to do when it comes to managing the puck.
It likely won’t be pretty at times if all three of those players are given a shot with the Bruins this winter.
But would those lapses and miscues be any different than what we’ve already seen from the players already sitting pretty at hockey’s highest level?
If the 2024-25 campaign is already looking like a lost year, the onus falls on the Bruins’ top brass to draw whatever silver linings they can out of this year by fostering the development of the team’s shallow prospect pool.
If the likes of Poitras and Lysell can’t hold their own, at least the Bruins and a fanbase starved of skill and excitement finally has some clarity. And if they hit, Boston has some new building blocks to add to their foundation moving forward.
But for now, the Bruins seem content on spinning their wheels in hopes of a mid-season spark field by a roster already running on fumes.
Be it the embrace of a youth movement, selling off UFAs for draft capital or even moving foundational pieces in hopes of a major reshuffle (paging Vancouver?), something’s got to give.
Because this Bruins roster — as currently constituted — ain’t cutting it.
