Boston Bruins: 5 Reasons It Will Be an Uphill Battle to Repeat as Champs

Come Saturday’s matinee tilt with the New York Islanders, the Boston Bruins will be seven weeks and 22 games removed from their last set of back-to-back victories. They enter Thursday night’s engagement with the New Jersey Devils only 21 games and five weeks removed from the conclusion of the regular season.

The longer they take to reverse this trend of mediocrity, the more the obvious reminder comes into the limelight. If they do not readopt the habit of winning consecutive games, the Bruins are not going to last long in defense of their 2011 Stanley Cup championship.

Boston all but inevitably will break out of hot-and-cold limbo and should still secure the Northeast Division title and second place in the Eastern Conference playoff bracket. Even so, whether they have enough in them to muster a return trip to the Cup final, let alone another crown, is bound to remain in doubt.

Some of the most critical contributors to last year’s run will likely be out of action or a significant stride below their 2011 aptitude. In addition, other contenders are decidedly fresher, hungrier and more capable of reaching the 2012 summit.

But if the battered Bruins are to pull the unlikely feat of a repeat Stanley Cup, something that has been pulled off only twice in the last two decades and never since 1998, they will need to enact an assertive answer to the following five questions.

Who Will Fill Horton’s Skates?

For the sake of his role in future seasons, to say nothing of the player’s long-term health and livelihood, it is probably best to keep Nathan Horton out of game action until next training camp.

But as important as it is to look out for Horton’s well-being and viability, there is no doubt he will be missed in the 2012 postseason. His clutch scoring over the first three rounds last spring (two overtime strikes against Montreal and Game 7 series-clinchers versus the Canadiens and Lightning) recurred too often to be labeled a fluke.

Without that weapon, the rest of the Bruins will have to bite down all the more in the tightest, highest-stakes contests and search for a clutch quality that they, unlike Horton, might not even have in them.

Can Peverley Still Make Plays?

He is more likely to return than Horton, and if he does, that will relieve the Bruins from the burden of resorting to Jordan Caron or any other forward who has been in Providence this season.

Rich Peverley’s presence is crucial not only to a proven dozen offensive players, but also to a stable top six throughout the playoffs.

Despite having missed the last six games and 12 on the year overall, Peverley is the team’s second-leading playmaker with 29 assists. But there is no telling how effective he will be once he reemerges from his knee injury.

Can he still move and distribute the puck as effectively as usual, let alone during the most intense games of the year, in the wake of a protracted round of rehabilitation?

Still Strong In The Net?

The recently tapering Tim Thomas has a history of upping his sharpness in the most desperate times, namely when a playoff seed or a continued playoff run is at stake. And even if Thomas sputters in the spring, the younger and fresher Tuukka Rask could emerge as Boston’s answer to Chris Osgood from the late-90s Red Wings.

But there is no guarantee on either front, especially with Rask receiving less playing time than he should be right now in the regular season.

Ready For An Empire State Of Grind?

The top-dog New York Rangers are simply not fazed by the TD Garden, so home ice likely will not matter if and when the Original Six rivals converge in the conference final.

Granted, the Rangers have not needed to visit Boston for a playoff series. But having won each of their last four visits to Boston over the past two regular seasons, they should be sufficiently prepared to neutralize the effects of the Causeway crowd when the Prince of Wales Trophy is at stake.

Regardless of which Garden hosts more action, the Bruins’ concern should be taking their number back from Henrik Lundqvist, who has clearly carried it since at least the start of last season.

This, by the way, is assuming the Bruins can also pole-vault over the likes of Pittsburgh or Philadelphia first. That is a probability, but not a guarantee.

Enough Juice To Make More Champagne?

Even if the Bruins can somehow surmount the Rangers and put in a second consecutive appearance in the Cup final, it likely will not matter who emerges from the West.

Unless Boston’s opponent is Vancouver again, there will be a decisive disproportion in terms of cumulative wear and tear dating back to the start of the 2010-11 season.

Since Detroit constituted the last case of back-to-back titles in 1998, three defending champions have promptly returned to the final, only to directly concede their crown to a new king. If Boston plays this June, especially with up to 16 skaters and one goalie held over from last year’s playoff run, the odds are in heavy favor of that trend living on.