Globe 3-4
Globe 3-4
No end to fall season is in sight
The Bruins will be in Raleigh, N.C., tonight, taking on the lower-than-low, ready-for-the-knackery Hurricanes in what will be Boston's 66th game of the 2002-03 season.
But the question that surrounded the Bruins last night will be the same tonight. Will they ever win another game? The way it's looking, the question won't change through next Tuesday's trade deadline, nor will it change right on through to what now looms as the merciful end of the regular season.
In case you just tuned into the slow, painful march of Dead Men Skating, the Bruins went winless for a ninth straight game last night, a 6-4 rubout at the hands of the Vancouver Canucks that wasn't nearly as close as the score indicates. Faced by ex-Boston netminder Peter Skudra in the Vancouver net, the Bruins played one strong period, all but disappeared in the second, and then showed up like eager senior prom dates for the start of the third. But after tying it, 3-3, Jeremy Jacobs's band of discount warriors quickly gave up another pair of goals and scuffled along to their 26th loss of the season.
It appears nothing can save them now. They have been in Operation Freefall for three months. Once again last night, the Bruins played their best hockey when down by a pair of goals, perpetuating the pattern that, despite the meticulous preparedness of their head coach, Robbie Ftorek, they don't come to the rink fully prepared/focused to play from the drop of the puck. Only after taking a couple of sharp jabs to the jaw do they decide to drop their chins and get their legs moving.
''I'm not sure what explains it,'' said Ftorek, still the head coach when the club bolted the building after the loss for a 10:30 charter flight out of Hanscom Field. ''As far as it being infuriating, well, it's a little frustrating. You know it's there, but it's a question of getting everyone on the same page and cashing in. For some reason, we're not playing for 60 minutes.''
Three months into the meltdown, the only conclusion is that there is no getting out of it, or getting 60 minutes out of them. The coach can talk about playing the full 60. The players can talk the same. They just can't match effort to words.
''The breakdowns can't happen this time of year,'' said right wing Glen Murray, among the very few consistent performers over the last 90 days. ''It's just not good enough. We can't put a full game together.
''There are no excuses. It just can't happen this time of year.''
It's now up to general manager Mike O'Connell as to whether his team continues its death rattle with the same coaching crew in place. O'Connell looked disconsolate as he left the press box in the final moments - a look he has often worn these last agonizing weeks. Media outlets across the city and nation in recent days speculated that Ftorek would be fired, and goodfella Gerry Cheevers put in charge, assisted by fellow goodfella Wayne Cashman, but all remained status quo late last night as the tattered squad headed out.
About the only thing the Bruins have going for them, at the moment, is that their early-season superiority has left them with some meat on the bone as they sit in eighth place in the East. Their lead over the also-rans isn't healthy, but at least it's a lead (a term they've rarely been acquainted with of late). One can only imagine, given the way they're playing, how the mid-April Bruins would match up in a best-of-seven series with the Senators or Devils. Think dust in the path of an Oreck vacuum.
But even daydreaming of the playoffs now seems folly. Will they ever win another game? Not as long as they keep producing more turnovers than an all-night North End bakery. Reminded of their defensive responsibilities in practice after practice, they lapse into periods of performance anxiety that would keep a team of therapists on duty 24-7 at McLean. One second they're strong on the puck. A second later, they're puckphobic, full of bad passes and faux pas.
''The mental breakdowns and turnovers just can't happen,'' said Murray.
Jeff Hackett was the shooting duck of choice in the Boston net, and he let in five goals on 32 shots. Not good odds. Like most nights since he has been here, Hackett could be held responsible for roughly half of the shots that went in the net. Also not good odds.
Team Turnover is making the affable Hackett look like Byron Dafoe's separated-at-birth twin brother. Dafoe, of course, became an orphan after last year's playoffs.
''It's very, very frustrating right now,'' said Hackett, who was 0-5 in his five starts before being traded to the Hub of Hockey, and has gone 4-8 in his 12 decisions here. ''We played a good first period, a not-so-good second, and then we had some great chances in the third. I wish I had the answer.''
According to Ftorek, calling up help from Providence is not part of the answer.
''We're going with the guys we've got,'' said Ftorek. ''These are the veterans. We've just got to get it done.''
It's all beginning to sound the same. The results read that way, too, a tie here, a couple of losses there, a tie, two more losses.
Bring on the Hurricanes and issue the blindfolds. Tryouts for the Ice Girls, the latest addition to the club, will be held March 17. Just as the women's team is getting into the swing of it, the men's varsity looks like it will be folding up for the season.
in a 1 vs. 8 playoff series. At least the 'Canes are playing worse than the B's if that's possible...
