The Boston Bruins have given the Ottawa Senators and Florida Panthers a real chance to take the final wild-card playoff spot in the Eastern Conference with three weeks remaining in the regular season.
Boston’s losing skid grew to five games with a 5-3 defeat to the Tampa Bay Lightning on Sunday, leaving the Original Six club with a slim lead in the wild card race. Further complicating matters for Boston is Ottawa’s two games in hand and shrinking gap in the regulation and overtime wins (ROW) tiebreaker.
The Bruins don’t have an easy road to the playoffs with a difficult schedule coming up. Their next two games are against the Western Conference-leading Anaheim Ducks and Atlantic Division-leading New York Rangers.
After those two games, both of which are at TD Garden, the B’s will play five of their final seven regular-season games on the road, including three straight matchups away from home to close the campaign. Boston’s 15 road wins are the fewest of any team currently in a playoff spot in both conferences.
If you look at the remaining schedules for the Bruins, Panthers and Senators, all three teams have a tough end to the season.
The Panthers have to play the Eastern Conference-leading Montreal Canadiens, second-place Lightning and Bruins twice. They also begin a five-game road trip Tuesday that includes four tough matchups. The Panthers have the most ground to make up in this race, but they do have three more head-to-head meetings with the teams in front of them, so it would be foolish to completely write them off at this stage.
The Senators have six more games against teams currently in a playoff spot, including two meetings with the Rangers, one against the Lightning and one versus a Pittsburgh Penguins team trying to hold off the Washington Capitals for third place in the Metropolitan Division.
Ottawa is 9-1-0 in its last 10 games and has the most momentum in this race. The incredible performance of goaltender Andrew Hammond, aka “The Hamburglar,” has saved the Sens’ season with a 13-0-1 record, a 1.65 goals against average and a .946 save percentage since mid-February.
In addition to stellar goaltending, Ottawa is driving puck possession with a 53.7 Corsi percentage at even strength in the last 10 games (eighth-best in the league) with an average of 3.2 goals scored in that span. Even if Hammond regresses a bit, the Sens should still make this a tight race until the very end.
The good news for the Bruins is their 11 games in 18 days stretch is over, and they have three days to rest and prepare for the nine remaining matchups on the schedule, which includes two more back-to-backs and two three-day breaks.
“I think right now, there’s no doubt guys care in that dressing room,” Bruins head coach Claude Julien told NESN’s Jack Edwards and Andy Brickley after Sunday’s loss.
“What I saw (against the Lightning) was a lot of mental fatigue out there, where some of the decisions we were making were so poor. … Hard to understand sometimes, but it is what it is. You see those guys coming out in the second period and competing hard, and competing hard in the third (period) again. Just too many mistakes that are made right now. It’s been a tough stretch, but you hope these next few days will help us regroup and get back on track.”
Thumbnail photo via Sergei Belski/USA TODAY Sports Images
