On Nov. 1, 2010, the Boston Bruins showed a glimmer of their eventual championship form: 6-2-0 record, an NHL-best 11 goals allowed, a 4-0-0 mark on the road.
On Nov. 1, 2011, the Boston Bruins have the hockey world wondering what the hell happened to that team that won the Stanley Cup: 3-7-0 record, 25 goals allowed, 1-2 mark on the road.
As Stanley Cup of Chowder noted yesterday, the Bruins put up 14 points in their first 10 games of last season, compared to six this season. The numbers just get more depressing from there: Center David Krejci with one goal in seven games and a minus-5; just three players who have tallied more than two goals in 10 games, and one of them is Rich Peverley; the power play is as expected based on their 2011 playoff run at 5-for-39; the PK is a middling 6-for-41.
Oh yeah, and they're one point ahead of the Columbus Blue Jackets in the NHL standings. You know, the team that's been called the season's biggest disaster and that might fire its coach and GM by the team you read this. That team.
The Bruins begin November with a game against the Ottawa Senators on Tuesday night, which probably seemed like a layup before the Senators recently decided not to lose anymore games. Boston will play 12 more games after that in November, eight of them on home ice.
At the end of the month, we're going to have a much better idea if they've shaken off the hangover or if they're headed for that exclusive club of teams who win the Cup and miss the playoffs.
Which way will the B's bounce?
DJ Bean of WEEI added some historical context to the Bruins' struggles in the East:
[For] two straight years seven of the top eight teams on Nov. 1 ended up in the postseason, and in 2008-09, six of the top eight teams on Nov. 1 made the playoffs. That means that in the last three seasons, only four teams that were not in the top eight after the first month of the season have gone on to grab a playoff spot. In a league that gets its fair share of guff for everyone making the playoffs, that's staggering.
An obvious reason as to why it's so difficult for teams to dig themselves out of these holes is the way points are awarded in overtime games. The fact that every game that isn't settled in regulation sees three points doled out (two to the winners and one to the losers), means teams hoping to leapfrog squads in the standings have to hope the other team doesn't play more than 60 minutes a night.
Boston has been to overtime once in its first 10 games, one of seven teams in the NHL that haven't had multiple OT appearances yet. They're also 1-4 in one-goal games — only Columbus (0-4-1) is worse.
One of the culprits has been one of the Bruins' championship bedrocks: team defense. From the Boston Globe:
It's the scattershot defensive play by just about every skater that has prevented the goalies from stealing wins. Chara and Dennis Seidenberg, the team's defensive strongmen last year, have not been close to serving as shutdown players. The rest of the blue-line group has been below average.
That's why opponents are getting so many good looks from an area foes seldom visited last year: the slot. The focal point of Boston's defensive system is the net-front real estate, what teams refer to as the house. Wingers are instructed to collapse to that spot on the ice. One defenseman must be stationed there as well.
But forwards aren't collapsing. Defensemen are roaming. As a result, what used to be a forbidden zone has become an underbelly softer than a couch potato's gut.
(A potato reference that doesn't involve Claude Julien's shape? Well, the Globe does need to maintain access ...)
The Bruins are aware that October doesn't dictate a season's fate … but November might, following a crap-tastic October. From Joe Haggerty of CSNNE:
It's difficult to see the Bruins floundering that badly with a healthy team that was good enough to win the Cup, but Milan Lucic is still determined to help the Bruins avoid a similar fate. Nobody inside the B's dressing room wants the Black and Gold to turn into a Stanley Cup cautionary tale.
"There is adversity you have to face throughout the season, and for us that's obviously right now," said Lucic. "We've got to figure it out quickly. I know it's only been 10 games, but how many teams have had starts like this and they've never been able to recover.
"Look at Jersey last year, who finished off as the best team after January and they weren't able to recover [for a playoff spot]. You can reflect on this and see what happens down the road, but we need to do everything we can to get out of this hole as quickly as possible. We're going to have to do this as a team and a group effort. It's the only way we can do this together."
There have been quick calls for a trade to shake up the roster, which makes sense: It's the complacency and malaise that followed a summer of stay-put management that's contributed to this off-key start. Should it be any surprise that Tyler Seguin and Peverley, two of the only players hauling ass for ice time, have been two of the best for Boston?
Maybe there's a trade. Maybe Tim Thomas says enough's enough and places this roster on his back again. Maybe the Bruins maul the soft spots in their November schedule and get healthy again.
They better. Two bad months can royally screw your season. Boston is already six points out of a playoff spot, chasing other teams that haven't yet really found their stride (Tampa Bay, Buffalo, the Rangers). It's beyond time to close that gap.