After a dominant 3-0 shutout of the defending champion Blackhawks Thursday night extended the Bruins point streak to 14 games, their dominance had been asserted. Thanks to their 12 game winning streak earlier this months and the 3 points that have come in the 2 games since it ended, Boston have shot themselves to a position 9 points clear of the Penguins for the Eastern Conference lead and 15 points clear of the Canadians for the Atlantic Division lead. Midway through March, the Bruins became the first team to clinch a playoff spot and while they could care less about such accolades, they have since climbed into a tight race with the Blues for the title of Presidents Trophy winners. Also, having allowed just 153 goals in the regular season, the Bruins suffocating defense led by stars like Zdeno Chara, Patrice Bergeron and of course Tuukka Rask, the Bruins are not only in the running for hoisting the Jennings Trophy come years end (fewest goals allowed) but also, the Vesina (best individual goaltender), the Selkie (best defensive forward) and the prestigious Norris Trophy (best individual defenseman).
But the Bruins are a team who genuinely does not care about that kind of hardware or any of the recognition that is brings and so as the team now sits with at the very least a number 2 seed in the Eastern Conference locked up, they find themselves with a choice. That choice is to either keep pressing hard untill the end of the season or lay back and let the starters play fewer minutes while testing out younger players the team might need in the playoffs.
We know captain Zdeno Chara has an opinion on what route the team should take as they play out their final 9 games of the year.
"Our goal is to play our game every game until the end of the season and being strong," Chara said. "When we do that, obviously, the business will take care of itself, but it's not on our minds that we want to go for that. If we play well, play good enough, then it will happen. At this point we're trying to focus on our game on the ice."
But just as Chara argues for keeping up this mantra of dedication to the team and the games they play that had earned them their first 50 win season in 4 years and this ability to sit back a bit as the season draws to a close, his presence reminds us of what has happened in playoffs past.
In the last 4 postseasons in which Big Z has been a part of, he has averaged 28, 27, 27 again and then 29 minutes of ice time per game. In each playoff appearance, he has played a key role in the success of the team, throwing hit after hit while throwing down his massive body whenever a shot needs to be blocked.
At times in last years playoffs, Chara was on the ice for 40+ minutes per game. While he definitely has not even approached those numbers in this regular season, Chara has crawled into a role as a key threat on the Boston power play scoring a team leading 13 power play points and 9 power play goals. He has averaged 24 minutes and 47 seconds of ice time per game this year logging 149 hits and 97 blocked shots in 70 total games. He alone is the biggest reason that the Bruins should settle in these final weeks of the season before the playoffs. But he is not the only reason.
It does not take much of a reminder for Bruins fans to recall the story surrounding Patrice Bergeron at the end of last season. He punctured a lung during game 5 but was forced to play through the pain, tearing cartilage and further damaging his ribs in the process. Furthermore there was Gregory Campbell who broke his leg and left a huge void in the lineup and Dennis Sidenberg who got injured on the final play of the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals and caused there to be a great deal of worry regarding the Bruins defensive core. If the Bruins were in a position last year, a position where they had clinched the division with 2 weeks left in the season than they could have and should have rested their starters not only to prevent stress related injuries but to also get a chance to test out some of their young talent and maybe discover how great Matt Bartowski and Torey Krug were before they needed to.
Even more so this year, on a team were concussions have befallen 3 different players on 5 different occasions, fans of the team ought to be worried about not knowing the depth of their farm system in this lineup with these players should say Loui Eriksson go down with a 3rd concussion in 1 season.
In the end, the goal of an NHL team is not to win the Presidents Trophy, it is to win the Stanley Cup and for a team in the Boston Bruins who pride themselves so heavily in keeping their priorities straight, they should know that. Furthermore as they go into the final days of the regular season, whatever path they take must be aimed at the Stanley Cup and not the Presidents Trophy.
And this team knows that. Honestly, when it comes to playoffs they certainly know what they are doing.
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