By: Joe Ballway, YawkeyTalkies Staff Writer
A ten-game losing streak. The league’s second-worst offense. Seemingly millions of man-games lost to injury.
The reigning Vezina winner, once a fan favorite, relegated to bench-warming duties and booed off the ice in his final home start. The captain and defending Norris winner, long hailed as a snarling shutdown force, called out for his lack of leadership and made a scapegoat for the team’s pussification. The reigning coach of the year, once seen as the defensive genius responsible for the franchise’s turnaround–well, most of us wanted his head on a platter by midseason.
Oh yea, and Dennis Wideman. And Michael Ryder.
And Matt f-ing Cooke.
All that, and. . . the sixth seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs?
Not bad for a nightmare season–not bad at all. With all the bitching and moaning us mercurial Boston fans have been doing (and are still doing, I suppose), you would’ve thought the Bruins were in dead last–and trust me, it did seem that way for much of the season. But a minor hot streak and a few lucky breaks later, they’re in the clear.
In large part, we can thank a weak Eastern Conference for that.
So, instead of the early tee time that seemed inevitable for so many miserable stretches, the Bruins are headed for [...]