Bruins make great strides

A year ago, the Bruins were in a late-season lurch, stumbling to the finish line over the last seven weeks with a record of 8-10-6-2. There was no buzz around the team. Rather, because general manager Mike O'Connell fired coach Robbie Ftorek and went behind the bench for the final nine regular-season games, there was a strong sense in the dressing room that the team was white-knuckling its way into the playoffs.

It showed. The Bruins were ushered out by the New Jersey Devils in only five games, and the 2002-03 season was over and out.

The mood around this season's edition could not be more different. Boston is challenging not only for the Northeast Division crown, but the Eastern Conference one as well.

"There's a difference between [now] and limping in and finishing sixth and getting New Jersey in the first round," said veteran defenseman Sean O'Donnell. "We had a meeting, just the team [about a week ago], and we just discussed that [with 10 games left], we really wanted to almost start the playoffs [then]. We feel like it's really important to, first of all to win the division, and second of all, to hit it on a high.

"You don't want to limp in. You don't want to have any bad habits going in. You're not going to win every game from now until the end, but we don't want to create any bad habits or let any creep into our game. We want to play the way we should in the playoffs [for the rest of the regular season]."

Much has been written about the goaltending tandem of rookie Andrew Raycroft and veteran Felix Potvin and the players say rightly so. They believe it all starts in the net, a position that before this season was not nearly good enough.

"The whole mentality going in, it's like having [Red Sox ace Pedro Martinez] going to the mound every single day," said O'Donnell. "You're not going to win every game but you really believe going to the rink with [Raycroft] or Felix in net, we can win every single game.

"You can't say enough about the confidence we got having Mike O'Connell go out and make those moves at the deadline to make us a better team and really have the guys in here look at each other and say, `You know what? We have a legitimate shot to make some noise in the playoffs.' I think those two things -- the goaltending and the commitment to winning that management has shown -- have really given us a shot in the arm."

It is said that first lines in the postseason cancel each other out, leaving it up to lines 2, 3, and 4 to make the difference, but O'Donnell said because the Bruins' first line is made up of Joe Thornton, Mike Knuble, and Glen Murray, he doesn't buy that.

"There are only one, two, or maybe three first lines in the league that can really go head-to-head against ours," he said. "I think, for the most part, our first line should outplay the other team's first line. There are some good ones out there, but I think we have an advantage against most first lines out there. You need goals from everyone in the playoffs."

Back in December, there were shades of deja vu after the team went 11-2-3-3 over the first 19 games but was 3-9-6-1 in the next 19. Despite going from one extreme to the other, O'Donnell said no one panicked.

"We started [successfully] and everyone was talking about how great this team was," he said. "I said, `It's a long season.' Then, when we had our struggles in December, we didn't panic. I think most people looked back at last year and the fact it was the same time when we hit [a slump] and we weren't able to get out of it. But we knew in here, [this year] was a completely different team. The way [Raycroft and Potvin] were playing, we were close, we just weren't getting maybe the bounces or whatever. We knew in here to be patient and things would turn around. In early January, they did, and we've kind of been riding that wave since."

Beating the Lightning Saturday, 5-4, after falling behind by three goals served as a confidence-booster the Bruins believe will help as they face a challenging week of games against Ottawa, Toronto, and Montreal.

"It's one thing to have a five-game homestand, but to play the first-place team in the conference and then have Ottawa and Toronto and then Montreal, these next three games are about as fun and exciting as it gets for a player," said O'Donnell. "We feel like if we can beat Ottawa [tomorrow] and Toronto on Thursday that we have a pretty good shot to win the division."

And that may only be the beginning.

"We feel we have a lot of not only better pieces as far as some of the positions, but we're a lot deeper and we're just focusing on this year," said O'Donnell. "We look around and we look at the rest of the teams in the East. This is one of those years where we could lose in the first round or we could go all the way and get to the finals. Everyone is uncertain next year with the future [because of the anticipated labor strife] and what's going to happen. This may be the best team that some of us are going to be on ever again."