This isn't to say that the current Bruins squad needs to bond after returning almost the entire roster from last year's successful campaign, but right now the Bruins might just be happily singing a legendary Willie Nelson tune.
After losing 4-3 to the Avalanche on Monday and going 2-3 in their season-opening five-game homestand, the Bruins will hit the road for a two-game trip which starts on Friday in Dallas before heading to Phoenix on Saturday. It may not be a lengthy trip, but right about now, anything could help this team that is struggling to find its identity.
“I think it will help for sure,” veteran Mark Recchi said. “I mean, we love playing in front of our fans but maybe that combined with all the preseason hype has gotten to us a bit.”
As Recchi pointed out, it can be easy for any team coming off a successful season to fall into the trap of forgetting how they were successful. Right now, that seems to be the case with the Bruins.
“ I think every guy in here — myself included — will admit that that’s been the case,” Recchi added. “We need to remember how hard we had to work to get to the top and do it again. Right now, I don’t think we’re working our hardest. It’s not that I think guys aren’t trying or [don't] know what they need to do, but we have to do it consistently and with the same intensity we had last season.”
Forward Blake Wheeler, who scored his second goal of the season on Monday, agreed with Recchi. The young winger realizes that so far, this isn’t the Bruins team that took pride in its two-way game last season — a team that stressed defense first.
“It’s one thing getting beat 2-1, 1-0, because we pride ourselves on defense and we are giving up quite a few goals here,” he said.
Wheeler was also quick to defend his goaltenders, who have been left out to dry in the first five games.
“It’s not the goalies' fault,” he said of Tim Thomas and Tuukka Rask. “They’ve done an outstanding job and we have kind of come out flat. So it’s all about buying into our system. We talk about it ad nauseam before games, during games, and it's there sometimes and when we do it, we look great. When we do it poorly, the puck ends up in our nets and we look for answers again. I think to a man, everyone has been kind of going through the mental ups and downs and I think that is what is hurting us the most now.”
Well, now they can go “on the road again” and hopefully find those answers. They are only five games in, but the 2009-10 Bruins are starting to realize again that wins don’t come easily in the NHL. While they have a team on paper that can win plenty of games, they have to earn every single victory.
