Ryan: The Bruins’ riskiest gamble proved to be their undoing as Cup window continues to close

Last New Year’s Eve, with the calendar set to turn to a new year and another promising Bruins’ campaign, Don Sweeney held his annual preseason press conference, fielding questions via Zoom in what had already become common practice after an isolated (and eventually unfulfilled) sojourn up in the Toronto bubble.

And boy, were there questions aplenty.  

Most of them focused on the elephant in the room: the state of a Bruins’ D corps tasked with replacing two looming giants (one literally) in the dressing room in Zdeno Chara and Torey Krug.

Replacing your captain of 14 years and your power-play QB was a venture easier said than done, especially on a veteran-heavy roster in which time isn’t precisely on their side when it comes to enduring a youth movement and the growing pains that come with injecting new blood in the roster.

Of course, some of the points made by one of the architects of this team were rooted in fact when it comes to parting ways with Chara and Krug. Moving on from Krug, as painful as it was, freed up plenty of capital — some of which was used to sign key pieces like Craig Smith. 

As for Chara, despite how disheartening the optics are of your Hall of Fame leader leaving on sour terms, a gloomy outcome was illuminated by a future in which youngsters like Charlie McAvoy could thrive as the leader of your revamped D corps, a move that did pan out in some respects, considering McAvoy's exclusion as a Norris-Trophy finalist this year was a heinous bout of media oversight. 

But for these gambles to work when it came to retooling this B’s blue line on the fly in the midst of a win-now window — there was plenty else that needed to work in favor of Sweeney and the B’s. 

Along with another major step forward from McAvoy and the returning cast of regulars, there was plenty riding on the return of Kevan Miller — who, battling back from more than a year on the shelf due to a knee ravaged by injuries, was expected to add plenty of snarl further down the lineup.

But the biggest risk of all came in the form of Boston’s unproven pipeline of young talent, with green skaters like Jeremy Lauzon, Jakub Zboril and Urho Vaakanainen not only tasked with taking on the minutes available following Chara/Krug’s departures, but also rounding out a depth chart that would undoubtedly be tested during the gauntlet that is an NHL season.

“We’re going to do it by committee and allow some of these guys a little bit of trial and error and potentially fail as a result of it,” Sweeney said back in December of playing the kids on defense. “But also succeed as a result of it and not look over their shoulder in any way, shape or form because they have to gain that experience. You’re not going to move forward in your career if you’re not put in those situations.”

Boston’s GM added: “They have to rise up and take that challenge. Some of them have been sitting, percolating, as we say, in the development process and playing all those key integrated minutes in Providence and getting opportunities up here but being sheltered at times. And they’re hopefully ready to take that ball and run with it. … I think we’re in a position, at least with the right side as constituted, to have the experience they have and the minutes that they have previously played, to be able to hopefully counterbalance that.”

Sweeney’s measured optimism five months ago stood in stark contrast to what was broadcast through the Zoom feed on Wednesday night — just minutes after yet another season with the likes of Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand, David Krejci and Tuukka Rask all in tow was squandered once more. 

"I think it's the same answer as every year,” a dejected Rask remarked about the contention window afforded to this core. “We're all getting older and we're not going to last forever. So it's definitely closing at some point.”

If it’s slammed completely shut after Boston’s second-round exit against the underdog Islanders remains to be seen. 

But when it comes to identifying the straw that broke the camel’s back when it comes to giving this veteran group another viable kick at the can, it’s hard to not point fingers at an offseason gamble by Sweeney and Co. that ultimately left the B’s with a whole handful of ‘nuthin.

Whereas previous failed Cup runs often followed a similar script for Boston — with a lack of scoring depth serving as the true Achilles Heel on the roster, the 2021 B’s were felled down the other end of the ice, with a shorthanded D corps unable to stem the tide and withhold the furious onslaught brought upon by the ...

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… Islanders (?), a fearsome club that ranked 21st in the league in goals scored during the regular season, along with a 20th ranked power play. 

But against a B’s D corps soldiering on without both Miller and Brandon Carlo as their dependable shutdown options at the netfront — a rather pedestrian Isles offense looked like something out of a ‘70s-era Soviet film reel, routinely dicing up a Bruins D corps sutured up by a duct tape and waiver-wire personnel. 

“At the end of the day, you could see it a little bit, our backend got thin, and it was a challenge for them,” Bruce Cassidy said. “Specifically tonight, I think and parts of Game 5. Some of that was personnel driven back there where we lost key guys on our penalty kill, became a factor in game five. Tonight, didn't manage the puck very well. And some of that was by guys that play a lot for us, but caught up to us. So that didn't help as well, and they were able to stay relatively healthy. So that makes a difference.

During the final three games of this second-round series (all New York victories), the B’s relinquished 15 total goals — with Wednesday’s loss earmarked by a slew of fumbles, failed feeds and miscues that regularly led to pucks sailing into twine behind Rask. 

And while the lion’s share of conversations following Boston’s latest premature playoff bow-out hover around the health of Rask and the gamble of starting him over a healthy Jeremy Swayman — either netminder was going to be fed to the wolves in this one, given the state of this Bruins’ D corps. 

A D corps that, despite the preseason rhetoric of the next wave of young skaters taking the reins and earning valuable minutes, rolled out Jarred Tinordi as the safest option over the likes of Vaakanainen or Zboril.

(A damning look at the final even-strength shot map from this six-game series — in which the Islanders feasted inside Grade-A ice). 

"It wasn't good enough to win, but neither were we,” Cassidy said of Rask’s play. “So this isn't on Tuukka. When you lose Millers and the Carlos — guys that play minutes for you and other D come in, other people in the lineup have to pick them up. They have to do their job, whether it's the forward scoring more goals or the goalie keeping the puck out of the net better, or we defend better, and it's a mix of all those things. 

"Of course (Rask) could have been better. And as I alluded to earlier, there were some rebounds that we could have, as a whole, cleared or controlled better  — could have started there, but we mismanaged some pucks and put them in bad spots as well. This is a team loss to me, all the way down the line.”

Yes, the Bruins suffered a major hit following injuries to both Carlo/Miller, but perhaps more telling than the B’s reliance on those two skaters as the only source of netfront stability is the fact that Boston received next to no relief from the next men up beyond Tinordi.

Whereas teams with loaded prospect pools like the Lightning can call up guys like Ross Colton that seemingly come out of nowhere and don’t miss a beat up in the meat grinder that is playoff hockey, the Bruins found no such relief when the going got tough and the pressure was ratcheted up on their own crop of young skaters. 

Of course, there were other factors that played a part in what was another year left that came up short. A non-existent bottom-six grouping. A disappearing act from Taylor Hall and Smith. A coaching clinic from Barry Trotz that outmatched Boston’s bench boss. And yes, Rask’s injury and his dip in play after a strong showing against Washington. 

But whatever the case may be when it comes to how everything went so wrong, the end result remains the same. 

In which a veteran core that has given this team so much is left shaking its head — and pondering what lies ahead. 

“I think the biggest thing that I learned coming from being a young guy to an older guy now is opportunities where you have a good team, where you really feel like you have an opportunity to win — they don't come along very often,” Marchand said. I think as you get older, you really realize how hard it is to win a Cup and to get there and what it takes.” 

“You can't take any opportunity for granted. Which is why, again, this is a tough one to lose, because we really felt that we had a good group to make a good run this year.”