Bruins Caught Between Two Generations
The Bruins currently sit fourth in the Atlantic division with nine points in their first eight games. Now it’s early in the season so it’s naturally tough to gauge just how good this team is, but their is one big flaw I’ve noticed so far and that is the older generation of the Bruins being riddled with injuries.
The Bruins are currently in a rebuild that they officially committed to last season when they made Bruce Cassidy, who had previously coached providence, the head coach. This was a signal that the front office was ready to turn the team over to younger generations, i.e. Guys like Pasternak, McAvoy, and Carlo. Now their are two types of rebuilds, the first is the 76ers style where your a team that has sucked forever and you have to start from scratch by tanking, trading for talented young players and hoarding draft picks which hopefully become stars. Then once you have that core of young talent you supplement it with veterans who you bring in threw free agency. The Bruins did this in the late 2000s drafting Bergeron, Krejci and Lucic, trading for Boychuck Ference and Rask and finally signing guys like Chara and Recchi. That core then went on to play in two cup finals and win it all in 2011.
The second type of rebuild is what the Bruins are currently doing, which is more of a restock. This type of rebuild is for teams who have been good recently but are no longer in real contender territory. For this type of rebuild to work you have to analyze the talent that you have, sell off or get rid of the more expensive pieces and carefully chose which players can help you bring up the next generation of your team while still contributing to the game. The Bruins have chosen Bergeron, Krejci, McQuaid, and Chara to step into the veteran role. The problem is that aside from Chara all those guys have already missed time this year with injuries. Krejci is currently week to week with a back injury to go along with a hip injury from 2 years ago, McQuaid is an undeniably tough SoB but he’s a frequent sight watching the game in a suit, and Bergeron’s injuries have become more frequent in the last three seasons which shouldn’t be surprising because despite only being thirty two he is in his fourteenth season. With this rapid aging of their veterans tough decisions are on the horizon for the Bruins front office as the future of the team may have to come sooner than we had hoped.