If you can’t do that, then changes need to be made to push the Tampa Bay Lightning much harder because that’s a young, talented team with players like Victor Hedman, Andrei Vasilevskiy, Brayden Point and Nikita Kucherov all in their prime years. The reality is the Bruins have lost twice in the last three postseasons to a division rival that they can’t even push past five games in a seven-game series. In hindsight, it probably slammed shut when they couldn’t close the deal on home ice in Game 7 against the Blues 15 months ago, and it definitely shut tight once the global pandemic struck and siphoned off the momentum after a Presidents' Trophy-winning season. What Krejci is essentially admitting is he can now see the competitive window closing on this current group to win a Stanley Cup. With the pandemic going on, you never know what’s going to happen,” said Krejci, who has his head cast downward for his entire postgame press conference alongside Brad Marchand. “It just kind of hit me after the game that the core group, a few of us, we have one or two, three years left. Why Bruins should not pursue Pierre-Luc Dubois trade with Jets With that in mind, the Bruins had their minds drift to the unknown of the COVID-19 pandemic, the inevitable changes coming to a core Bruins group that’s been together for more than 10 years and the sadness that things can’t go on forever. The Bruins gave it their best shot and fought to get it into overtime with a late third-period goal from David Krejci, but inevitably they bowed to a Tampa Bay team that’s younger, deeper and better in pretty much every way at this point. This was more akin to finally realizing the inevitable, that the B’s window to compete for Stanley Cups with this current group is closed. Bean: Don't blame B's playoff exit on the pandemic That was as raw and emotional as it’s ever been in a postgame Bruins dressing room because they knew it had slipped through their fingers.īut this postseason was different for so many reasons - and with that came a whole different level of emotion for the Boston Bruins after they were finally eliminated in double-overtime in a 3-2 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning in Game 5 of their second-round series. The utter shock of the 2010 collapse to the Flyers comes to mind, as does the heartbreak of Boston flatlining in Game 7 of last year’s Stanley Cup Final where the B’s core group was fully aware they had wasted their best chance to win another Cup. There have been some doozies over the years, of course. For the 58-year-old Cassidy, winning the Stanley Cup would mean everything.There is always some sadness tinged in with regret, and maybe even a little denial, when a hockey season has freshly ended for the Bruins in playoff defeat. Ironically, the team the his former team couldn’t be in the first round, is all that stands in the way of Cassidy finally getting his name engraved on the Stanley Cup after over 20 years in the NHL, as a player, coach and scout. I was a little relieved after (the Bruins) lost in the playoffs for my kids not having to hear about ‘Oh, if your dad had done a better job…’ You know what I mean? Kids say things.” I worked there for 15 years and the kids were born there. “What I was more concerned with was we have a house in Cape Cod, and we like it there in the summer. If the Bruins had followed up their record-breaking regular season with a Stanley Cup, Cassidy and his family would’ve never heard the end of it. That’s why he didn’t mind seeing the roster of players that by all accounts, got him fired, lose to the Florida Panthers in the first round of the 2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs. Louis Blues in Game 7 of the 2019 Stanley Cup Final, and subsequent playoff losses. What Cassidy wasn’t OK with was the feedback his kids had to continually endure in school and around Boston after the Bruins lost to St.
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