By: Joe Ballway, YawkeyTalkies Staff Writer
It looked like the Bruins were in for a fresh start after the Olympic break. Winners of four straight heading into the layoff, they appeared to finally be gaining steam and getting healthy.
But five games later, it’s the same old story.
Injuries and inconsistency.
The same two factors that have plagued the Bruins through this entire season of disappointment and bizarre twists are unwilling to disappear. The Bruins are just 2-2-1 since returning from their two-week hiatus, and as usual, they pretty much look asleep at the wheel. They blew three separate one-goal leads to the Maple Leafs on Tuesday night, eventually losing in overtime. Tim Thomas finally had one of his signature games, flopping left and right to make impossible saves, but per usual, the whole team couldn’t find its game simultaneously.
To make matters worse, they may have lost Marc Savard–their most valuable forward–for the season after he suffered a grade 2 concussion on a nasty hit from Pittsburgh forward Matt Cooke. Zdeno Chara also missed the Toronto game and has been listed as day-to-day with a minor lower-body injury.
Perhaps of equal concern is that the Bruins, in desperate need of scoring, virtually stood pat on [...]

By: Joe Ballway, YawkeyTalkies Staff Writer
In the first period of Saturday night’s game against the Panthers, David Krejci skated up the boards and flung a desperate, bad-angle shot at Thomas Vokoun as he was forced into the corner. The puck caught the Florida netminder off guard, sneaking through his legs and across the line.
Then, with the game on the line in the third round of the shootout, Marc Savard skated in and fumbled the puck as he deked. Vokoun lost sight of the puck and stayed with Savard as it found its way underneath him, keeping the Bruins alive on another fortuitous bounce. Savard laughed visibly as he skated back to the bench–a loose reaction of joy better associated with the ’08-09 squad than this year’s embattled crew.
It looks like the Bruins are finally getting their breaks.
And now they’ll have the Olympic break, a two-week recess in which the players can ease up a little after stringing together four straight wins. Just one week after losing ten in a row and slipping to 12th in the conference, they’ve jumped all the way back up to 7th place. With four other teams nipping at their heels, however, momentum andconfidence from this four-game stretch will be important in getting the Bruins through the final quarter of [...]

By: Joe Ballway, YawkeyTalkies Staff Writer
It’s no secret that the Bruins have been gliding on thin ice for weeks now, fighting to maintain their wobbly grasp on a spot in the Eastern Conference’s top eight–a spot that even the most skeptical of fans thought was guaranteed heading into the season.
But after a humiliating 5-1 loss to the bottom-feeding Carolina Hurricanes on Sunday, the ice has officially cracked. In fact, the Bruins have fallen straight through to the bottom with a resounding thud.
Losers of five straight overall, Boston has now slipped from fifth in the conference to ninth in a matter of one week. More damage is possible during the next four days–the Bruins are idle until Friday night and could potentially be leapfrogged by four more teams over that span. Yes, that means that it is entirely feasible that the Boston Bruins will be thirteenth in the Eastern Conference come Friday, an absolutely stunning fall from grace for a team that once harbored Stanley Cup expectations.
Assessing the carnage is a lengthy task. Defensively, the Bruins are a mess, starting with the captain. Zdeno Chara has just four goals on the season and has struggled in all aspects of his defensive [...]

By: Joe Ballway, YawkeyTalkies Staff Writer

With 2009 drawing to a close, the time has come to reflect on what has been a roller-coaster decade in the Hub of Hockey. In honor of the successful, and even the embattled, Bruins teams of the past ten years, I decided to rank each one from worst to best:
10) 2004-2005 (Lockout)

Hey, a bad season is better than no season, right?
9) 2005-2006 (29-37-16, 74 points, 5th in Northeast, 13th in Eastern Conference)

Ah, the twilight of the Mike O’Connell era. It’s difficult to determine which of the first two post-lockout seasons was worse, but this one seemed all the more putrid because of the expectations heading into it. The Bruins were supposed to build off their successful ‘03-04 campaign: 104 points, a division title, and a Calder-worthy performance from Andrew Raycroft. O’Connell pegged the B’s as surefire contenders, delivering a confident endorsement prior to training camp:
“This team, the way it’s set up with the rule changes, I think that we have to be considered one of the favorites for the Stanley Cup.”
The Bruins proceeded to burst out of the gate like that kid at practice who hops onto the ice with his skate guards still on, [...]

By: Joe Ballway, YawkeyTalkies Staff Writer
Blah.
That’s the best phrase to describe the Bruins’ effort last night. One game after clawing back to force overtime against the Blackhawks–one of the league’s best–they delivered an absolute stinker, losing 2-0 to the lowly Leafs.
That’s right, the same team that gave up 12 goals to the Bruins in their first two meetings this season. The same team that, heading into the game, had allowed the most goals in the NHL.
And as for the Bruins getting back into that “one of the league’s best” category–after a four-game losing streak, it’s starting to look like some of the early-season problems are reemerging. The night-and-day difference between the last two games sums up what has plagued the players and driven fans insane: flashes of last year’s brilliance–as demonstrated by Friday night’s impressive display of resilience–but no consistent finish, few timely plays and little sense of urgency.
The offense continues its torturous path of unpredictability. With Milan Lucic on the shelf, Marc Savard simply doesn’t have anyone to dish the puck to. His revolving door of wingers in the past few weeks, from Blake Wheeler and Byron Bitz to Marco Sturm and Michael Ryder, has produced virtually nothing; [...]

By: Joe Ballway, YawkeyTalkies Staff Writer
Good as new after an offseason of shoulder surgery, extensive rehabilitation, and equally tedious contract negotiations, Phil Kessel will reportedly take the ice when his miserable Leafs host the Lightning tonight. Needless to say, should the Bruins’ offense continue to flounder against the Wings, Kessel’s performance will be closely monitored by a growing number of concerned Black ‘N’ Gold enthusiasts.
Kessel’s scoring touch has eluded his former teammates thus far, as the Bruins rank just 22nd in the NHL with 31 goals in 13 games. Last season, the Bruins finished second overall in scoring behind a well-balanced, consistent attack. They certainly haven’t been helped by the absences of Marc Savard and Milan Lucic–injuries that appear to finally be catching up to a beleaguered offensive unit. That being said, the upcoming weeks could serve as a strong determinant of just how much Kessel’s services are missed.
Boston’s struggles have been highlighted in the past three games, a span in which the Bruins have gone 1-2 while managing just three goals. They returned to the .500 mark after being shut out 1-0 by the Rangers on Sunday afternoon, continuing their bizarre, frustrating trend of alternating wins and losses each [...]

By: Joe Ballway, YawkeyTalkies Correspondent
Down 3-1 to the Senators with under two minutes to play, the Bruins’ fifth loss of the season was inevitable. In fact–loyal fan that I am–I turned off the TV and chucked the remote, feeling I had better things to do on a Saturday night than watch the clock run out on yet another setback in a season marred with perplexing inconsistency. I whined to my sister via text that the Bruins, now a sub-.500 team, were nearly halfway to their loss total from all of last season. After all, they hadn’t shown much fight through their first nine games, so what was there to indicate the possibility of a last-minute comeback?
Of course, being a mercurial, pessimistic Boston sports fan, I disregarded the Bruins’ uncanny ability to claw back into games–a quality that carried this team through so many brilliant stretches last season, but seemed to be absent thus far in the 2009-10 campaign. Some of that magic must still be lingering, though, as I received a text barely a minute later: Mark Recchi goal, 3-2 Ottawa with a minute left. Feeling slightly ashamed, I tuned back in to see if there was a faint glimmer [...]