Anyone who watched the Boston Bruins during the 2014-15 season knew something wasn't right. It was difficult to put a name to it, and many just shrugged it off as the ripple effect of a handful of difficult injuries to key pieces like captain Zdeno Chara and forward David Krejci early in the year. But in all reality, something in Boston was simply...amiss. The Bruins, the black and gold, the Big Bad B's, simply did not look big or bad or anything like the teams of recent years past. They faltered in important moments and found themselves struggling just to stay afloat, leaving fans with ample questions as to just what went wrong, and when.
Thanks to a recent column from Joe Haggerty of CSN New England, we may now know what that something was. In his deep-dive, Haggerty details the struggles of the NHL's Boston-based franchise last year - struggles that began with the unexpected and eventually devastating trade of defenseman Johnny Boychuck to the Isles and the decision not to re-sign fourth-line enforcer Shawn Thornton and ended with Boston sacking general manager Peter Chiarelli.
"Multiple sources indicated to CSNNE.com there was a divide between groups of younger and older players in the Bruins dressing room last season," Haggerty reports. "The younger guys felt excluded from a group of established, influential veterans who were, in some cases, focused more on their own individual situations than the team's. And some older vets felt they weren't getting enough from the young players who needed to step up to replace those who had left."
Some, like forward Brad Marchand, were even willing to discuss this rift outright.
"It was different," said Marchand, via CSN. "In the past years, we were family, but for some reason this past year we were definitely a little bit divided, and had different cliques. It could've been because we had a lot of guys coming up in different times from Providence; they felt a lot more together, and it seemed like the older guys didn't do a good job at integrating other guys."
Per Haggerty, the Bruins badly missed the presences of Boychuck, Thornton and Andrew Ference, who departed the offseason prior - guys Haggerty calls "connective-tissue" players - when the difficult stretches of the season came. At those times, the Bruins locker room would go quiet in a way that it never had in the past.
Still, despite the mounting issues, the Bruins impressively managed to stay relevant late into the season, though, of course, the team did ultimately falter, going 5-5-4 down the stretch and losing each of their must-win games.
In the end, it will take time to see if the moves made by new GM Don Sweeney this offseason - signing Matt Beleskey, Jimmy Hayes and Zac Rinaldo - will ultimately make the Bruins a better team. But at this early date, there's at least one thing that can be counted as a certainty - the "soft" label that seemed to follow the B's around last season, won't carry over into 2015-16.
