After Buffalo Sabres fans flooded TD Garden on Sunday afternoon, the embarrassment of the Boston Bruins’ 6-1 loss in Game 4 should be felt all the way to the top of the organization.
Those in Sabres gear have to be feeling great about money well-spent on Sunday evening, after paying quite a price to get in the building and see their team deliver the most humiliating defeat for the Bruins since June 12, 2019 (the date alone should make you cringe). A quick check of lingering Ticketmaster listings during the first period showed seats ranging from $205.70 for the balcony to $1,179.75 for the loge.
As a result, you’ve got dedicated Bruins fans, the kind with a spoked ‘B’ tattooed on their backs, priced out in favor of Sabres fans who are just happy to finally see some playoff hockey. Then the Bruins have a shockingly bad breakout attempt, an even worse turnover, and a goal allowed just minutes into the game, and the most jarring crowd pop these ears have heard since first covering the team live in 2018.
After that deflating first goal, there were enough Sabres fans to make it sound like a Buffalo home game. They hit Jeremy Swayman with the classic taunt. They popped again for the second first-period goal, and the third goal, and the fourth. They chanted “Let’s go Buffalo” in the closing minute, converging on empty seats left by the Bruins fans that had headed for the exits.
So, the embarrassment should not stop at the rink level. It should reach as far as, ironically, Buffalo, where the Delaware North headquarters resides. But lowering the ticket prices, while an easy way to win back some locals, isn’t likely to improve the debacle that’s unfolding on the ice.
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What are the Bruins gonna do, fire Marco Sturm? Can’t fathom that Cam Neely and Don Sweeney even have the option to burn through a fourth head coach after just one season, in which they outperformed expectations to finish with the fifth-best record in the conference. But, outside of shitting the bed again in Game 5 and robbing the Jacobses of a Game 6 playoff gate, it’s hard to imagine their jobs would be in question, either.
That leaves the B’s with only one option: major roster changes. A DNA shift. Perhaps a significant addition, a culture-changer who takes on the “C” and shakes them out of what feels like a toxic level of comfort with repeated playoff failures. Something that sends a “Nobody’s safe” kind of message. It’s far from easy to do, but if the Bruins want to be a team that doesn’t shame themselves in front of their own fans — well, on Sunday it was maybe 70% of their own fans — a culture shock may be necessary.
The Bruins never needed to win this series, but now, they need to avoid the kind of embarrassment that makes you rethink whether this season was truly a success.
“Man to man in here, if we’re not fucking embarrassed with what just happened, then I don’t know what to say,” as Charlie McAvoy bluntly put it.
Despite all that, the series still isn’t over. The Sabres have to close the deal, and the last time they won a series-clinching game, Daniel Briere and Chris Drury were co-captains. Netflix was still primarily a DVD delivery service. Their head coach was … Lindy Ruff. But that’s all beside the point. This isn’t about the Sabres, and it’s not even about whether the Bruins come back and win. It’s about whether they can undo the humiliation ritual that just occurred in their building. This next game should be their last chance to rescue themselves from heads rolling down Causeway Street. The whole idea of this season was to be a “tough out,” so the last thing they need is to become an easy out in the most important games.
To talk about the actual hockey for a moment, they had arguably their worst game yet in terms of defensive turnovers and breakout mistakes, in a season filled with them. They not only let Swayman down but actively made it harder for him, like when Jonathan Aspirot pushed a Sabre back into him then got their skates tangled before the fourth goal (is it possible to challenge for goaltender interference on your own player?). Swayman appeared to pull himself after the sixth Buffalo goal, and bark something at the bench as he walked off, and Sturm seemed to be totally fine with it. It was the first time any Bruin showed real emotion, when they should’ve had no issues showing it for all 60 minutes.
“At least one guy (showed some fire), right?” Sturm said. “It was not his fault today, I can tell you that. I felt bad for him. That’s why we kept him in there for a while, because he’s a battler, he wants to be in.”
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Swayman may be the guy that some point to as the one that should be traded for culture reasons. But could they really do that with the one player that seemed to even care about what was happening on the ice, and expect a positive result? David Pastrnak and McAvoy would qualify as major DNA shakeups, but to find a willing trade partner for a deal that makes sense and would actually make them better, would really be threading the needle.
Their best hope may be to identify the sources of the apathy that seems to be infecting the locker room, and eradicate it. Think the Patriots removing entitlement from their building, as they did after firing Jerod Mayo, moving on from several notable players, and replacing them with Mike Vrabel and several guys that fit his culture. They may need to do the same with the Bruins roster and Sturm. If there really are guys in that locker room that didn’t feel their souls being eaten after a loss like that, then it’s time to fill it with some that would.
It’s hard. It would likely take some painful sacrifices. But it may be essential. Because the absolute last thing the Bruins should do is to run it back with what they have, from the front office all the way down to the ice. Unless they want every seat to replace black & gold with blue & gold.