Boston Sports Then and Now

This Band Of Bruins Will March On(Barry Chin/Globe Staff)

Shakespeare said it best when he said, “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers. For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.”

This Band Of Bruins has come together in a year of turbulence.

A year where they lost 10 games in a row.

A year they lost their star player to a cheap shot by a goon from the fake Black and Gold.

A year that they lost countless players to injuries.

A year where everyone from the coach to the front office was being called to the gallows.

A year that the Bruins brass plucked a player in Miro “The Devil” Satan, off the NHL scrap heap to help the floundering offense.

A year that the Bruins star players like David Krejci and Zdeno Chara underachieved.

A year where the much maligned Dennis Wideman and Michael Ryder were being booed and ridiculed to no end.

The Bruins could have thrown in the towel in and said it’s just not going to be our year.

However, being a Bostonian and a New Englander is all about dusting yourself off, getting up, rolling up your sleeves, and getting back in the fight.

And the Bruins did just that.

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Decreasing effort but increasing ice time for some players is hurting the Bruins.

There have been several excuses widely discussed for the Bruins lack of consistency and desire this season. Many point to all the injuries as the excuse but every team deals with injuries, some worse than the Bruins.

Some point to the loss of veteran leadership in the locker room. Hnidy, Axelsson, Yelle and Ward all departed this off-season seemingly leaving Boston without much of the veteran guidance and support they had last season. But when you look at some of the curious coaching decision, maybe the inconsistency starts with the coach and trickles down to the players.

This is not a call to fire Bruins coach Claude Julien. Julien is a good coach who has had success in the NHL. But perhaps the mistakes he had made has been part of the reason the Boston ship hasn’t sailed so smoothly this season as it did last season.

First let’s take a look at the curious case of Dennis Wideman. Perhaps Wideman is a skilled player who is just having a down season but this season has been downright atrocious for the Bruins blueliner.

Wideman is a minus 14, the second worst plus/minus on the team and has just 23 points. He is often at the center of a terrible defensive turnover or breakdown and seems to have the “ability” to let the puck slip by him at the blue line at crucial moments of a powerplay. He has been more of a liability than a boost to the Bruins this year.

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Has Chiarelli spent himself into a corner?

With their team struggling to score, and vicariously struggling to win, Boston management has yet to make any significant moves. Fans are in an uproar for something, anything, to happen. But is Boston reluctant to make a move, or have they handcuffed themselves by past moves?

Boston needs an impact player, a sniper who puts fear into opposing teams and can fill the net. Acquiring such a player means taking on additional salary and eliminating salary from your current roster to make room for such a player, but the Bruins have dug themselves a financial hole that makes acquiring a higher caliber player extremely difficult.

The historically stingy Bruins have spent to the cap since a salary cap was implemented following the lockout, but have yet to figure out how to manage it. Look at four Peter Chiarelli signings: Michael Ryder, Dennis Wideman, Tim Thomas and Milan Lucic.

Dennis Wideman was acquired from St. Louis during the 2006-07 season for forward Brad Boyes. He finished with 3 points in 20 games for the Bruins but Boston thought he had potential. The following season Wideman would score 36 points and would be rewarded with a four year deal with an annual salary cap hit of $3.875 million.

Last year, much like many of his Bruins teammates, Wideman had a career year scoring 13 goals and netting a total of 50 points, 25 of which came on the power play. Wideman finished with a plus 32 despite some defensive drawbacks but was paired with Zdeno Chara on a Bruins team that scored 274 goals (2^nd in the league).

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The Bruins must continue to rally, just like they did at the Winter Classic.

Wow, the Black and Gold have come along way in just a week.

Last Saturday, the Bruins were suffering their tenth straight loss at the hands of the Vancouver Canucks in yet another shootout failure.

The Bruins were at rock bottom drowning in a historic losing streak and many were witnessing their beloved hockey team fall into the abyss of mediocrity.

And they weren’t sure if the Bruins could get up from it.

But as they say winning is contagious.

On Super Sunday, in the first game of Black and Gold doubleheader (The Saints were the other participant beating the Colts in the Super Bowl); Boston defeated Montreal 3-0 for their first sixty minute effort since defeating San Jose on January 14^th.

Rask was stellar making 36 saves. The defense held the lead and the offensive came out of their hibernation. Defensemen Andrew McQuaid scored his first NHL goal which helped ignite the Bruins and Marco Sturm, the team’s only semi-sniper, potted two goals of his own.

Perhaps the Bruins needed some take out food rather than home cooking to right the Black and Gold ship.

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