By now they should be selling

In the NHL this morning, the buyers heavily outweigh the sellers, and with only 23 days to go before the trade deadline, that should be a good thing for the Bruins. Something had to go their way this season, didn't it? Not that the front office will admit it yet, but it's time to slap the "For Sale" sign on the Black-and-Gold roster.

What we know here in the Hub of Hockey is that the 2006-07 edition of the spoked-B isn't going anywhere because, in large part, of their near total inability to score the last 5-6 weeks, as well as their equal unwillingness to play physical, or even determined, hockey since the opening puck drop in October.

Never was the latter deficiency more underscored than Thursday night when it was left to mild-mannered Brad Boyes to pull a sweater over Toni Lydman's head and deliver the Sabres defenseman a few soft-serve punches to the noggin.

Brad Boyes, pugilist. That's just wrong. Wrong for Boyes. And especially wrong for a franchise that conditioned its loyal fans over the decades to believe that, if nothing else, grit and heart and work ethic were Bruins truths that everyone took to be self-evident.

The Big Bad Bruins of our past have given way to the Sweet Little Bruins of our present, and that spells the franchise's fourth postseason DNQ in seven seasons. Weeks ago, general manager Peter Chiarelli began a search for an energy forward, and perhaps he'll land one (the Kings' Sean Avery?) in the next three-plus weeks. If so, great, even if it is the bitter-tongued Avery. It's clear now, however, that no single player, no matter how big his heart, wicked his punch, or loud his growl, will bring out the beast in this team. It's just not there. If it is, then Whitey Bulger must be hiding out in that abandoned McDonald's site across from the Garden, tutoring the Bruins in the art of disguise and disappearance.

If Chiarelli, as now expected, does go into sell mode, then Brad Stuart and Marco Sturm are surely outta here in short order. No doubt that will bring out the lingering, vocal legion of Joe Thornton supporters, as well it should, because dealing away Stuart and Sturm will leave the franchise with only Wayne Primeau as its last direct link to the Thornton era (such as it was). But Chiarelli can't rewrite the history of Nov. 30, 2005. He can only take what is today and try to wring something potable out of what has turned into one rotten apple of a deal.

Trouble is, Stuart and Sturm, and for that matter Primeau, haven't brought enough to the table this season to enable Chiarelli to make much of a deal. That's strike one. Next, they are also all on course to become unrestricted free agents as of July 1. That's strike two. Sure, there is the rare deal for a "rental" that brings back more than expected (think: Doug Weight to Carolina last season, or Adam Oates to the Flyers in 2002), but none of Boston's three UFAs-to-be is going to bring back that kind of value.

At this point, on average, they might net little more than draft picks, and then their value for next season simply becomes the cap space made available in their departure (a collective $5.65 million) and whatever potential (if any) is embodied in those picks.

Cap space doesn't sound all that exciting today, but keep in mind, Marc Savard came here as a free agent for $5 million a year, and while that sounded like a gross overpayment at the time, he has turned into one of last summer's top purchases in the entire UFA market. In the end, it could be that the lasting DNA of the Thornton trade is the one player bought with that cap money, and the draft picks or bodies that are garnered here in the next few days.

Of the three, Stuart will bring the biggest return, and Chiarelli would be wise to play out the dealing string to as close to the 27th as possible. There won't be more buyers. In fact, there will be fewer, because each week in February at least one more team will transfer from the buyers side to the sellers side, as the Bruins did last week with their lackluster losses to the Rangers and Sabres (2).

The read here, however, is that there won't be more than 6-8 clubs selling, simply because 22-24 teams either will have playoff seeds all but salted away, or feel confident that they can vie for one of the last couple. Parity creates false hopes, for sure, and for the next 23 days that should play right into the hands of the sellers.

The time has come and gone for Chiarelli to salvage a berth for this season. The time to act was in the first 10-12 days out of Christmas break, when the Bruins returned to work and went a disconcerting 1-3-1, scoring only 12 times. That's when it became obvious that the club's collective energy was lower than a basset hound's belly. Headed into last night's game in Raleigh, N.C., the lethargy had extended to 4-11-2, with only 36 goals in 17 games.

In the new revved-up NHL, 2.1 goals per night is an express ticket to a land we know all too well -- the barren space of another season gone bust.

Jacobs has seen this before

The obvious has not escaped Bruins owner Jeremy Jacobs. After turning over the front office, the roster, and examining every detail of the operation down to the width of the Zamboni's scraping blade, little has changed for his club where it counts most -- in the Eastern Conference standings.

"Three [seasons] in a row . . . seems there's a pattern here," mused Jacobs, interviewed via telephone late last week. "We go along OK for a while and then something happens -- we take a dive. Am I mad? Well, I'm disappointed. I don't like it. If being mad did any good . . . but it doesn't . . . just being mad about it doesn't change a [expletive] thing."

Jacobs was in the Causeway Street house Monday night for his club's 6-1 loss to the Rangers.

"What a terrible disppointment," he said of the thumping by the Blueshirts. "Just a terrible show."

He watched the next night with his team in Buffalo, his hometown. Expecting to see both a better effort and result, he saw more of the same, a lackluster 7-1 loss to the Sabres. It was all too reminiscent, he said, of what he has seen before, especially last season following the mid-February Olympic break. Thursday, a 3-1 loss, again to the Sabres, extended the losing streak to five.

"I don't know what it is," said Jacobs. "It's this letdown, like something happens to their psyche. Maybe they're squeezing their sticks too hard, I don't know, but it's like they're not having any fun."

Jacobs said he expects some changes to be made, things "to evolve," but was emphatic that he will leave all of that to his first-year general manager, Peter Chiarelli, and coach Dave Lewis. All the fixing from the home office is done, made months ago, including the dismissal of GM Mike O'Connell and ditching of longtime team president Harry Sinden, these days a hood ornament in the team hierarchy. Now Jacobs will leave it to Messrs. Chiarelli and Lewis to figure out how to get better results.

"I have confidence in the coach, and I have confidence in the general manager," said Jacobs, whose opinions of the team and its play are shaped, first and foremost, by the on-site input he receives from his son, Charlie, the club's executive vice president. "I'm confident Peter will make the necessary changes. I know he's a hard worker. If anything, I've got a GM who works maybe too hard -- what's happening to us is not due to any lack of thinking on his part."

Nonetheless, Chiarelli (dubbed here as Peter the Patient) thus far has not been able to make any substantial roster improvements. In November, he picked up Stanislav Chistov from the Ducks, and thus far the Russian winger has contributed little. On Thursday, Chiarelli dumped defenseman Milan Jurcina to the Capitals for a fourth-round pick. Just a year ago, "Jerky" was considered a virtual lock to be on the Boston blue line for years to come. Now he's got Alexander Ovechkin's back, with the Bruins holding an IOU for a pick in the 90-100 range.

For now, the senior Jacobs remains patient, too.

"I don't think you beat the horse any harder," he said, referring to his employees who wear the team colors and carry the sticks. "I don't know if leaning on them will get it done. What I hear is that they're a group of hard workers, and that they're in good shape, and I believe they'll get it together."

Thomas can't mask his admiration for Gumper

Bruins netminder Tim Thomas never saw Lorne "Gump" Worsley play, but over the years, watching old game films, Thomas developed a sense of admiration for the Gumper.

"He'd really get mad after someone scored on him, and I liked that," said Thomas, reflecting over word last weekend of Worsley's death at age 77. "Just a different time, I guess. You're not allowed to do that today, because your teammates won't like it. And the media will say, 'What a baby that guy is.' Everything you do out there, you have to think about it, because so many eyes are watching."

Worsley, a squat 5 feet 7 inches, played most of his career without a mask, but eventually added the new-age protection when he went to play for the North Stars (1969-74). In his pre-mask days, he spent many seasons backing mediocre Ranger teams, and once, when asked which NHL club gave him the most trouble, he deadpanned, "The Rangers."

An exasperated Phil Watson, once Worsley's coach in New York, one day moaned, "How can we win when our goalie has a beer belly?"

The unflappable Gumper, when apprised of his coach's remarks, said, "That just goes to show what a dope we have as a coach. Everyone knows I don't drink beer -- just whiskey."

Etc.

Keepers of the Flames
The trade market loosened a bit last week when the Kings flipped center Craig Conroy back to the Flames, reuniting him with his old pal, Jarome Iginla. In his Calgary Redux, Conroy potted two goals in a 4-1 win over the Kings, who picked up Jamie Lundmark and a pair of draft picks for surrendering Conroy. In the hectic hours of July 1 last summer, the Flames were one of those teams that made a competitive offer to bring Marc Savard in as Iginla's setup man. Like Conroy, Savard had a successful tour with Calgary, prior to his getting dealt to the Thrashers in November 2002.

How Swede would that be?
The Peter Forsberg saga in Philadelphia has yet to lead the veteran center to opt out of his no-trade contract. Provided "Foppa" surrenders the no-trade (and why stay around that protracted funeral?), look for the likes of Vancouver in the West and Carolina in the East to go after him. The Canucks would be especially intriguing, given the contingent there of talented Swedes Markus Naslund and the Sedin twins (Henrik and Daniel). The Canucks need the offensive boost more than the Hurricanes.

Andy, not Sidney
According to USA Today, the NHL All-Star game drew 474,000 households on Versus, representing an 82 percent falloff from ABC's market penetration in 2000. Sidney Crosby and friends were up against the powerhouse "American Idol." No way to compete with Simon Cowell, of course. But the NHL also lost that night to TV Land's "Andy Griffith Show." To American s, Alexander Ovechkin's got nothing on Otis the Drunk or Floyd the Barber.

Bruins captain Zdeno Chara, his dietary discipline enough to make a Trappist monk scream, admits he occasionally breaks training in the offseason and allows himself a glass of wine. "Japanse plum wine," said Big Z. "Nice. Sweet, and light, a little pink." With Red Sox pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka pushing Japanese beer big time last week, perhaps he and Z can hook up in a Slovakian-Japanese distribution biz.

Provided he stays healthy, it looks as if Crosby will walk to the NHL scoring title. Entering play yesterday, he had 82 points, a healthy 12-point margin over the likes of Ovechkin and Martin St. Louis. Crosby also had a plus-12 ranking, compared to Ovechkin's minus-11 and St. Louis's plus-3. In the post-expansion era, only two players have won the scoring title and finished with minus ratings. In 1967-68, Chicago's Stan Mikita led the league with 87 points and finished minus-3. Wayne Gretzky, with Los Angeles in 1993-94, won the Art Ross with 130 points, and finished a minus-30.

Winners of six of their last eight as they headed into last night's game, the Maple Leafs were in the thick of a playoff push. Ex-Bruins goalie Andrew Raycroft took a three-game winning streak into last night, having allowed a total of three goals and stopping 92 of 95 shots in victories over Montreal, Carolina, and the Rangers . . . A bail hearing is schedule today in Montreal for Mark Lafleur, 22-year-old son of Habs legend Guy Lafleur, who was arrested last week for sexual assault of a minor. According to his attorney, the younger Lafleur also has Tourette's syndrome, which could have factored in the alleged assault, and he also may have a drug addiction . . . Last season, Chara led all defensemen with hits (224) and ranked third overall in that category. This season (prior to weekend play), Ottawa forward Chris Neil led the hit list with 215 and Big Z ranked No. 17 overall, and trails seven defenseman . . . The sizzling Canucks, with only one regulation loss since Dec. 22, rubbed out 81 of 86 opposition power plays (94.2 percent efficiency) in the stretch of 16 games leading to last night's game in Calgary . . . Among the numbers that won't help Bruins GM Peter Chiarelli in dealing: Brad Stuart's minus-20 prior to last night's game in Raleigh, N.C. The only blue liners with worse marks: the Flyers' Derian Hatcher (minus-23) and Joni Pitkanen (minus-24).

Kevin Paul Dupont's e-mail address is dupont@globe.com; material from personal interviews, wire services, other beat writers, and league and team sources was used in this report.