Mooch said:
That article has one of the most poorly written, incomprehensible paragraphs in recent memory:
"This is not, however, to say we're watching the demise of the Bruins. They're still going to be very good, perhaps even great, again next year. Probably the year after that as well. The window isn't closing, per se, but it isn't not-closing either. Making rash decisions about personnel, like the Seguin trade, isn't a reasonable approach at this time, but it's certainly the temptation. After all, we're now really having a discussion about whether Sidney Crosby is actually better than Jonathan Toews (and yes, of course he is), just to illustrate how far this kind of post-elimination mania can drive people."
Some trolling in the rest of the article, but I don't know why this is singled out. There are people crying to trade the best player in the game just because the bottom half of his team sucks and Lundquist played fantastic. Similarly, there are people crying to break up the President's Trophy winner because they had a ton of bad luck and Price played fantastic. Chara isn't going to be good or even around for much longer. The Seguin deal doesn't need to be re-hashed but calling it an overreaction to a string of bad luck is reasonable IMO. I mean, we know this in baseball and while playoff hockey emphasizes a few different things it's definitely more of a coinflip than most people seem to think.
The Bruins should:
1. Not overreact to bad luck over 5 games and then not showing up for two games, which is basically what happened in the MTL series. If any of a number of things go differently in game 1 they probably win it in 5. I don't know how you can look at that series and think major overhauls need to occur unless you're just looking for a reason to be grumpy. The first line shot something like 3% or something ridiculous, part of that is good goaltending but a lot is just bad luck. So you bring Iginla back if he will take a workable one-year deal, and your top 6 should be the same.
2. That said, the 4th line has been a zero for a while and there are issues with depth. Thornton has 7 points in 100 career postseason games and just one goal - I know that's not his job, but "his job" is also minimized in the playoffs and even moreso with the quicker game that the NHL is moving towards. I mean, he barely played when they were trailing this playoffs and only saw 3:28 in game 7 -- that's handicapping the team. Fortunately the fix is easy as they have a better, cheaper player than Campbell in Spooner and I liked what Florek showed as well. So you go into camp giving Spooner every chance to be your 4th line ctr and be willing to ditch Campbell. Then you can actually have a 4th line you're ok with "rolling" in a close game instead of avoiding it whenever possible. If the league is moving to be faster and more skilled, and I think it is, the easiest way for the Bruins to catch up would be to add skill where they can and not worry about hitting everyone (which the first three lines do, anyway).
3. There's not a lot of trade possibilities, really. Lucic isn't really worth his contract but I'm pretty sure the team sees him as untouchable. If they had the balls to see if someone would overpay for him, that would be interesting but it would "change their team identity" or whatever and it's not happening. Pretty much everyone else who has been mentioned as a trade possibility here or elsewhere is a good enough deal for their cap hit (Boychuk, Marchand) or is hurt and has low value right now (Seidenberg, Kelly). You could do some kind of challenge trade like Krejci for a similarly good player or players, but I'd be cautious, if that even comes up.
4. On defense, Chara, Boychuk, Seidenberg, Hamilton is an excellent top 4. Krug should be re-signed, obviously. Then Miller is perfectly fine as your #6. I would view Bartkowski as my 7th guy and hope he's not expensive. I would like them to pursue more depth at the deadline than they did this year, especially if there are any injuries, but I don't see any offseason moves as warranted here. Trading Seidenberg would be do-able if you needed the cap space, but again, not going to happen while he's hurt. I wouldn't even think about moving Boychuk.
5. They have been good at finding backup goalies, so whether it's CJ re-signed or someone else I won't worry about this.