The Boston Bruins and head coach Claude Julien are running out of patience - and time.
Currently sitting at 17-14-3 and in fifth place in the Atlantic, the Bruins are one of the NHL's preseason Stanley Cup favorites to truly be performing well below expectations thus far this year. Injuries and a lack of scoring have left GM Peter Chiarelli seemingly bent on making a handful of moves (T.J. Oshie for Milan Lucic, perhaps?) aimed at clearing cap space and fixing their scoring woes.
"I think Boston has been in that phase for a little while now," said Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet Canada while appearing on an episode of Calgary's Sportsnet 960 Monday morning, as transcribed by NicholsOnHockey.com. "I really do believe they're a team that would like to do some things. If you saw Claude Julien yesterday morning... Of all the coaches in the league, he's one of my favorite to deal with, and he was snapping on the Boston media yesterday. Which is unusual for him. You can see he's feeling the pressure, even though he's got an extension. The patience is wearing thin there."
The Bruins are struggling due to a bad, if not necessarily dire, cap situation - they've currently got $1.775 million in cap space - that will only get worse as young players come up for extensions - players like Torey Krug and Reilly Smith.
"Boston has got a real problem in the sense that their cap situation isn't going to be any easier next year," said Friedman. "Now Krug and Smith, I've written and said this before; I think when those two guys sign, they kind of have an idea of what their extensions are going to be for next year. But they've got to do Dougie Hamilton too."
Having a bevy of talented young players the team would like to lock up long-term is about as good a potential problem as is possible to have, but it may also be handcuffing the team this season.
Their difficult cap situation, combined with the questionable future of the world economy and the Canadian dollar has Boston - like many NHL teams - afraid to do any deals right now for players with extensive contract terms - players like St. Louis Blues forward T.J. Oshie.
"I think Boston would love to make a move, but I think they're scared of guys like Oshie who've got term. And that is the No. 1 hold-up right now."
That doesn't bode well for the remainder of the current Boston season. If they're to make a run, something needs to change, whether via addition (Oshie), subtraction (Lucic) or both.
