An Absolute Disaster

 Everything seemed to go swimmingly for the 2019-2020 rendition of the Boston Bruins, an Art Ross winner in David Pastrnak, a Presidents’ Trophy win as the league’s best, and plenty of promising developments in the games of their young players. Then the coronavirus pandemic put a halt on a likely Stanley Cup run until a Toronto bubble opened up in late July. Boston was undoubtedly the favorites to hoist Lord Stanley, but got pantsed and embarrassed by the eventual champion Tampa Bay in the conference semifinals. Many have attributed Boston’s failure in the 2020 postseason to the departure of goaltender Tuukka Rask from the Toronto bubble or to the unique circumstances invented by the pandemic, but in truth the 2019-2020 Boston Bruins were a deeply flawed team and that flaw has carried into 2021. The black and gold simply put are too top heavy and reliant on the output of the Marchand-Bergeron-Pastrnak “Perfection Line.” This heavy dependence was admitted by general manger Don Sweeney when he dealt forward Danton Heinen, David Backes, promising defensive prospect Axel Andersson, and a first round pick for forwards Ondrej Kase and Nick Ritchie and signed a high volume shooter in Craig Smith. While it is too soon to give a full verdict on either of the moves, the Kase & Ritchie deal is beginning to look like another trade failure on Don Sweeney’s list. Kase has played somewhat sparingly due to injury, but when he has been in there he has been unable to tickle the twine with frequency. Then there’s Nick Ritchie who has had his early tenure with Boston be somewhat of a rollercoaster ride. He was in and out of the lineup throughout the postseason and arguably was the direct cause of at least one loss in the Tampa Bay series, but now has shown some flashes in the early going of 2021. Despite Ritchie’s progress as a net front presence, Boston is starved to death by a lack of goal scoring for. The Bruins have yet to score a 5 on 5 goal headed into their home opener against the Philadelphia Flyers and have only scored 3 goals in their first 3 games. Ondrej Kase and Nick Ritchie must begin to manufacture goals immediately or that move will just be yet another example of Don Sweeney flushing valuable assets down the toilet in order to dump a horrendous contract he signed a veteran past his prime to. It’s time for Sweeney’s guys to produce or he should face the consequences of wasting the remainder of Patrice Bergeron’s window.