Boston Bruins need to play a full 60 minutes.
Sound familiar?
Maybe because we’ve been talking about the Bruins talking shifts, games, weeks off since October. Last night was just another game in which the Bruins played a strong portion of the game, but not the full game.
People have been saying it’s Julien’s job the Bruins aren’t putting in a full effort. The “Fire Julien!” crowd have started lighting their torches, the pitchforks are being sharpened. Still consider: 1) Bs are still in first in Northeast, 3rd in East. Let’s not panic yet; 2), who do you replace Julien with?
Our recommendation (if we had to make one) — Mike Wallace.
Seriously. Maybe he can get the Bruins to play a full 60 minutes.
See what we did there?
Look on the brightside, the powerplay sucks, they take games off and yet, despite their worst efforts, they’re still in first place. That’s the silver lining. But that doesn’t excuse the shitty play the Bruins tend to fall into from time-to-time — almost on a nightly basis if feels like sometimes.
We hate sounding like a broken record but the Bruins not fighting for 60 minutes is the Bruins #1 problem.
After the jump… quotes, headlines and more on the Bruins inability to play a full 60 minutes…
In case you don’t think the Bruins playing a full 60 minutes has been an issue…
“It’s not acceptable that you play so well all night, then those kinds of things come back to cost you a hockey game.” —Julien, after 3-2 loss to Habs
We know how to win but we didn’t get some bounces and we didn’t play the right way in those last few minutes. –Seidenberg, after 3-2 loss to Habs
“For the first 40 minutes, Tampa was dominating the game…It’s too late when you get going in the last 20. That’s not good enough.” –Zdeno Chara, after 3-1 loss to Tampa (Nov. 24)
“I think it was nice to get a good start… Hopefully we can learn from that and moving forward to the next game, hopefully we can bring those first two periods again and rectify that third.” –Claude Julien, after 3-0 win over Washington (Dec. 20)
“It almost makes it even more frustrating knowing that for 20 minutes you can turn it on and have the ice shifted completely in your favor.” –Blake Wheeler (Jan. 2)
“I think the intensity was really lacking a lot tonight.” –Marc Savard (Dec. 21)
A quick Google search on NESN stories:
“I think we kind of just were waiting to hear that last buzzer and get those two points, because we didn’t really play our game in the third period.” –Blake Wheeler (Dec. 19)
“We had a real good start and I thought we took the game to them very well in the first… In the second period, again, you knew they were going to come out better and I thought we held our own and still had our chances… So, you know, we came out in the third and we did exactly what we weren’t supposed to do… We played 40 minutes.” –Claude Julien (Dec. 19)
“Hopefully we can keep working toward getting that full 60-minute effort. We still won the game, so we have to be a little happy with that, right?” –Adam McQuaid (Dec. 19)
“We just have to figure out how to play more consistent. I think we’re a much better team than we’re showing, and we feel we can be more consistent.” –Cam Fucking Neely (Dec. 22)
“We played hard for 60 minutes, definitely.” –Milan Lucic, after 4-1 in over Atlanta (Dec. 23)
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