Boston Bruins…Detroit Red Wings.

The B’s are further behind the 8-ball after Detroit’s 3-0 shutout of the Philadelphia Flyers last night, so anything less than two points and the Bruins are done. As said in the previous post, many are already throwing dirt on the grave of the 2015-16 Boston hockey season.

It’s been said before, the big-time players need to be the big-time players tonight. If the core veterans can’t find a way, then it’s time to break up the band. As Cam Neely said on the 98.5 radio waves recently, the passion has been there this time around where it was missing a season ago at this time, but talent is the deciding factor and Boston’s defense is not championship caliber. Heck- it’s not even playoff caliber.

The elephant in the room is headed for the door.

Timing is everything…if the Bruins had been up and down and in and out of the playoff picture all year, the angst and disappointment would not be as great because expectations weren’t high this season to begin with.

The real problem is- 3+ weeks ago they were second in the conference and many (myself included) figured they were in.

This is the kind of thing that gets people fired, unfortunately. They’re a better team than the one that has posted that 2-7-1 record, but how much better is the burning question. Just a modest improvement over the past 25 days, and we would be talking about first-round opponents right now.

Boston’s lousy home record is a big part of it, too. The team began the season with three losses at home, and when they dropped Tuesday night’s shootout to Carolina, it was starting to feel like an old episode of the Twilight Zone.

Enough with the excuses- this Bruins club is not a playoff team. Until they are. They have two games to put themselves in position to salvage what was going to be a referendum on the pessimists until three nightmarish weeks in the making of another collapse similar to last year. Even if they win out, they’ll need help to get in. But then again, we said the same thing last year and the Bruins did not even win the games they had to.

I guess I’ll leave it to Udo Dirkschneider, Wolf Hoffmann and the rest of the boys in Accept to bring it on home. Hoffmann said this of their signature metal anthem, and it fits the situation well enough…”tortured” indeed.

“We’ve always been interested in politics and in human rights and things like that, so a lot of the lyrics that we had in those days, and to the end actually, were dealing with human rights, for instance, and that’s really what ‘Balls To The Wall’ is all about. ‘One day the tortured will stand up and kick some ass!‘”

Balls to the Wall (The song’s 33 years old & I still chortle at Udo’s camouflage fashion choices)