Wrong, but not by a long shot
Black and Gold simply surprising
OK, raise your right hand high - don't be timid, get it up there - if you were the one whose preseason pick had the Bruins making the playoffs.
Oh, and lift it even higher if you never wavered in that conviction, even when Patrice Bergeron was knocked for a loop, Glen Murray popped a groin, Manny Fernandez underwent knee surgery, Chuck Kobasew broke a leg, Marc Savard exited with an aching back, and a disgruntled Garden employee drove away on Christmas Eve with both Zambonis, along with a month's worth of concession receipts.
Of course I jest about the Zambonis and the Delaware North dough, but not about the rest of the wounded, some now playing, some not.
So, a hand count, please. Who had the Bruins playoff-bound? Uh-huh. Good. Gee, is that right? Nice.
Liars!
Every . . . last . . . one . . . of . . . you.
The Bruins tidied up their 2007-2008 regular season Saturday night with a passionless 3-0 loss to the Sabres at the Garden. Their lethargy was no surprise, really, considering they clinched a playoff spot the night before in Ottawa, leaving Saturday night on Causeway Street little more than a varsity skate-and-sweat session.
Finally, in what was the franchise's 245th game since the end of the lockout, the Bruins secured a playoff berth, stopping their streak of two postseason DNQs, and they now face the Canadiens in a best-of-seven series that will open Thursday night in Montreal.
Full disclosure, here folks: your faithful puck chronicler pegged the Bruins, under the structured approach of new coach Claude Julien, to pick up one win a month over last season's pitiful compilation of 76 points. In other words, I had them right around 88-90 points, and figured they would just miss out on the last (No. 8) seed in the East.
"Any thought to a 'mea culpa' from you in the Globe?" e-mailed self-described faithful reader Tom Shaheen yesterday, at 1:14 p.m., to be precise.
Yeesh. Tough group, my readers, and frankly, I spend most Sundays arranging my 'mea culpas' in alphabetical order here at home, because I've learned that's what happens when you have a pre-teen in the house. I say I'm sorry, admit I know nothing, and then tell him how blessed I am to know that he knows everything (I'd say we agree on this latter point, but I might be made to issue a mea culpa over that, too).
So, yes, I got it wrong about the Bruins, but not by a lot, and certainly not by the country mile-and-a-half that some of my fellow prognosticators across North America missed by when rating the Black and Gold's chances. Challenged to score goals from start to finish, the Bruins inched in to the playoffs with 41 wins and 94 points, an 18-point improvement, or their best "uptick" since Pat Burns took the motley lot that finished with a league-worst 61 points in '97 and horsewhipped them to 91 points and a playoff berth in '98.
A note about upticks: with the NHL's creation of three-point games in 1999-00, all these comparisons should carry bold asterisks. Frankly, trying to decipher the NHL standings and factor playoff berths is more the work for an actuary than a sports fan. How about we just count wins and losses, and the teams with the most wins make the playoffs? Now there's a bit of novel thinking, and I am willing to bet this morning that the Edmonton Oilers really could warm to that idea.
As for Boston's big jump in points a decade ago, remember the words of then general manager Harry Sinden when it came time to send Burns packing? Some clubs, noted Sinden, attacked with a 1-2-2 scheme, while others opted for a 2-1-2, or a variation on those themes. But not the Burns-led Bruins. "Not us . . . we've got a 0-0-5," said the boss, confirming how dumbed down and deathly dull the Boston product became in the late-'90s.
Much like Burns, Julien got the job done with a very simple, paint-by-the-numbers game plan centered on defense and goaltending. In the end, it was the work of Tim Thomas in net that many of the preseason pundits grossly underestimated. Most of them, in fact, figured Fernandez would be the No. 1, because the general manager, Peter Chiarelli, penciled in the former Wild 'tender for 60 starts or more. If the job ended up going to Thomas again, figured most of the puck cognoscenti, it was a team destined for yet another lottery pick in the June draft.
With all the wins, OTL points, hanging chads and pads tallied, Chiarelli yesterday said that three players - Glen Metropolit, David Krejci, and Vladimir Sobotka - exceeded his expectations this season.
Interesting, isn't it? Not Thomas. Not Zdeno Chara. "No, I've seen that from him before," said Chiarelli. And not Dennis Wideman, the defenseman acquired in the Brad Boyes swap in February 2007.
Wideman was not asked to dress for opening night this season, in Dallas, and ended up being a workhorse who often played 28 minutes or more along the blue line. He put to rest much of the "What about Boyes?!" chatter, although he still has trick-or-treat moments back there, prone to boo-boos and high-risk giveaways.
Krejci and Sobotka, both rookies, were obvious surprises, because they didn't factor into anyone's depth chart with the approach of a new season. Sobotka plays with some sandpapery nastiness in his game. Krejci, forced to pivot the top line when Savard exited March 22, was immediately effective and flashed the gifted hands of a potential first-line center.
The veteran Metropolit, who came to camp without a contract, showed versatility it wasn't known he'd had, and filled big voids left by the absences of Bergeron and Savard.
"Tougher matchups . . . more minutes," mused Chiarelli, when summing up Metropolit's season. "He stepped in and did a good job."
Faced now with a high-tempo, offense-oriented Canadiens club that manhandled them in the regular season, the Bruins (0-7-0-1 against Montreal) will have to find some goals if they are to cause dismay for the postseason prognosticators. Of course, they have hunted for those all season and have been only marginally successful. Of the 16 teams to qualify for the playoffs, they ranked near the bottom in goals scored with 212. But take that for what you will because the Ducks, the defending Cup champs, finished with 205 goals, fewest of all this season's Cup-run qualifiers.
"It's concerned us all year, and it shouldn't be any different going into the playoffs," said Chiarelli, asked about his club's dearth of scoring. "We don't have gifted goal scorers. We have to work hard to put pucks in the net."
The same kind of hard work they needed to prove most everyone wrong this season.
Not you there, with your hand held high, of course.
Kevin Paul Dupont can be reached at dupont@globe.com.
