Cozy In Boston

from Kevin Paul Dupont of the Boston Globe, By now, three weeks into the NHL season, we?ve all grown tired of the word ?hangover.?? It has become almost as synonymous with the 2011-12 Bruins as the term ?Stanley Cup champions?? is with the 2010-11 Black-and-Gold version.

OK, they?re not good right now. We get it. Right? To a degree, yes, but not if we look beyond the catch-all, generic term ?hangover?? and try to identify the root cause of the team?s melancholy.

From where I am watching, which is six floors above the playing surface when the Bruins are on home ice - as they are tonight against Montreal - it looks as though they suffer most from a lack of competition for jobs. It?s not that they are fat cats, or a bunch of prima donnas gone soft from a summer diet of high carbohydrates and higher adulation.

But they look comfortable. Far too comfortable. And that?s how they?ve played for most of the first eight games. If we need a statistic to underscore that, here?s one: Their lead time in those eight games totaled a meager 89:41. In 485 minutes of action, they were ahead on the scoreboard slightly less than 20 percent of the time. Over five of their last six games, in fact, their lead time was 0:00.

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Source: http://www.kuklaskorner.com/index.php/hockey/comments/cozy_in_boston/

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