Dream Year Turned Nightmare - 35.0, at the very least!

At the beginning of the year, the Boston Bruins still had a top contender. They also still had Johnny Boychuk to solidify their blue-line and power plays! The G.M. had made it clear and a very public conscious effort to ''keep the players that won the cup together'' - however, lots of them were already gone from there: Tyler Seguin, Nathan Horton, Andrew Ference, Shawn Thornton, Michael Ryder... And Boychuk would soon follow, too.  Without all of those guys, the Bruins were simply no longer the ''exact same team that won the cup'' - nope.

So it is such a great surprise that they faltered as they did; that they couldn't live up to that reputation of perennial contender?  Sure, they still have Patrice Bergeron, David Krejci, Milan Lucic, Brad Marchand, Zdeno Chara and Dennis Seidenberg - all playing at considerably less than their full potential, alas, with the one notable exception of Bergeron, perhaps.  Horton's replacement was Iginla? Gone, too. Seguin's replacement was who - Jordan Caron? Matt Fraser? They're both gone as well! Shawn Thornton may be effectively replaced by Maxim Talbot but, somehow, the old Merlot Line is simply not even close to the shadow of what it once was!  It would pick up the offense in those close games when the top three lines were momentarily silenced by intense coverage from the competition; be it Daniel Paille, Gregory Campbell or Thornton himself, big goals would come from these unexpected sources at the most crucial times, especially during the playoffs.  It sure didn't happen with any kind of regularity throughout this latest season; and it sure didn't have a chance to happen during the post-season, as the Bruins didn't make it there!  :-(

Two points - two measly points short of a participation in the big spring tournament!  The Bruins could have shown the Rangers something; even in this state, they could compete!  But they were two points short from qualifying.  How many points were lost, this past season, that would have been the Bruins' usually, in recent times, without any difficulty whatsoever?  Losses in shootouts were numerous: you get one point for those, but it is clearly not enough!  Losses to sworn enemies hurt the most, no matter which form they take: and, in recent years, they should have never been that many against the Canadiens... Capitals... Panthers, with whom the Bruins were competing for a playoff spot... Senators, who finally got that spot... Penguins?  At least the Bruins beat the Penguins this year! Oh - the Sabres!  You know you're not at your best when you drop one or two to Buff-a-loooooow. Those were points in the bank: instant standings boosts that the Bruins failed to collect, quite incomprehensibly indeed.  Maybe the Bruins were collectively tired?  So were the Kings: the only thing worse than failing to qualify for the Big Dance after being first overall and winning the President's Trophy is to have won the Stanley Cup like the Kings did - and then not qualify for the playoffs the very next year. The Los Angeles Losers... sorry, Kings... were too tired from having been in two finals in three years, winning both times - vanquishing in long, hard-fought battles the tenacious, vicious Blackhawks on their way there... Something the Bruins could not do in their Stanley Cup final in 2013, after winning it in upset fashion against over-rated Vancouver in 2011 and being upset in the first round as the defending champ in 2012, by the unscrupulous Washington Turds... Capitals, Still... The way we were: those were good times, in comparison! I mean. It goes without saying that, for both the Kings and the Bruins, the 2014-2015 season is one to be forgotten!

Small consolation to be had, at least: the Bruins got one the nod from NHL.com itself - one of the top ten goals scored during the 2014-2015 campaign!  Too bad it was scored by someone who didn't stay with the big club all year through: Seth Griffith.  Maybe, if you<re lucky, you can still see that goal being scored (against hated New Jersey and their Revere of a goalie, former native son then turned Canuck now a Devil, whatsisname... Cory Schneider, is it?) over and over again, as he so deserves it, right here: at the NHL videocenter, nothing less!

Of course, true fans cannot dismiss the season's accomplishments with the back of the hand like that - simply because the team failed to compete for the greatest prize there is to be won there. The heroics of the ever-consistent and perseverent Patrice Bergeron, the often (but not always) clutch play of Brad Marchand as well as the courage of one Zdeno Chara who, though with a broken fibula, played the remaining games of the season still! Wow!  The captain of the team showed uncommon bravery and resilience by playing over 24 minutes per game while he basically skated on a broken leg!  Bravo Zdeno! Too bad it was all for practically nothing, ultimately... (Well, we collected *one* point, in that last game there: the loss to Tampa Bay, in overtime, in the final game of the season!)

The general manager is to be dismissed, ironically just as he dismissed the remaining members of the fabled ''Merlot Line'' which so often carried the Boston Bruins to success in the post-season in recent campaigns, when the top three lines were, indeed, being momentarily shutdown by the opposition's coverage. Who can possibly make someone like Maxim Talbot start scoring clutch goals though - hmm? A new general manager is to be found now; and his list of tasks is growing by the minute, really... Trade Lucic? Or Marchand? Rethink the team philosophy completely, maybe? Because crushing and banging the other team does not yield results anymore in this league: playing physical is good for the spectacle, at times (as if hockey fans and, more specifically here, Boston's ''gallery gods'' were such bloodthirsty fellows. In fact, they are all such types, across the NHL fanbases: they relish toughness, fights, as if ice hockey were truly the new gladiator games of the modern era! But we are digressing right now...) but playing like that does not net the goals necessary to win the damn contests!  Several teams are experiencing this, right now: the Ottawa Senators went on a stunning 23-1-1 (or something like it) run just in order to qualify for the playoffs; had they not done that, the Bruins would have trumped them for that second wildcard and final spot!  But they accomplished the feat not solely due to their toughness, no: it was the miracles that their one-hit wonder Hammond the Hamburglar was accomplishing between the pipes that truly did it for them!  Once he began slumping, their wins were a hell of a lot more difficult to obtain: and the tough play wasn't cutting it for them either, just as it did not for the Bruins this season.  A change in philosophy is imperative for the Bruins - for they have got skill and tons of it still (despite having gotten rid of tons of it throughout the years: Boyes, Kessel, Seguin are but three of them...) And if said change can only be accomplished through a change behind the bench - then so be it!  Bye Bye Claude Julien!

All is well up in Providence, meanwhile... It is at least that! The Providence Bruins made it to the playoffs; with the added assistance of Pastrnak, Spooner, Trotman and Griffith, they should do well against any and all opposition. (Watch out, Hartford Wolfpack! Watch out, AHL! For these Bruin kids are the real deal: they will hoist a Stanley Cup one day - soon!)

The Providence Friars won the National Title - over Boston University, on top of that! Aye, destiny is sometimes that cruel to Boston: remember all the times we were on the verge of a championship only to see it snatched from us at that last second? It happened so many times to the Bruins, Red Sox, Revolution; to the Cannons too, I'm sure... The Patriots? Well, there were those two Super Bowls that got away: the one against the Bears of the 80's was normal but the two against the Giants (I always typo them as ''Ginats'' first - maybe I should not correct the typo anymore...) were just too much... But those are other stories!