Ranking the Top Moments of 2014 for the Boston Bruins

Not since before the turn of the decade have the Boston Bruins had a year as tumultuous as 2014. They went from reigning finalists and regular-season “champions” in April to a team confronting cap constraints, injuries and an identity crises.

Fourth-line reformation, with special emphasis on injecting speed, was a primary discussion topic in the wake of Boston’s Game 7, second-round loss to the Montreal Canadiens. The club’s subsequent parting with free agent Shawn Thornton after a seven-year alliance was one ice-shaking step toward answering those calls.

Other questions and concerns, however, surfaced from the failed follow-up to a solid 2013-14 regular season. An unprecedented stumble by this core’s standards to start the current season has, at best, preserved those issues and, at worst, generated new ones.

While the calendar year was not exclusively acrid for the Bruins, all of 2014’s top developments leave them with no shortage of critical thinking tasks for 2015. Their status as an NHL heavyweight has all but gone on an indefinite sabbatical—a hiatus that could be tricky to terminate.

Along with one intact sign of hope, the transactions, emotional meltdowns and physical ailments that define this team’s 2014 downturn are ranked as follows.

Unless otherwise indicated, all statistics for this report were found via NHL.com and are through games of Sunday, December 28.

5. Hardware Haul

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For the second time in six years, two individual Bruins won their respective positional awards for defensive supremacy. Patrice Bergeron claimed his third Selke Trophy in three chances, while goaltender Tuukka Rask nabbed the team’s third Vezina in a six-season span.

Rask’s predecessor, Tim Thomas, had previously garnered the Vezina in 2009 and 2011. Thomas’ first victory on that front coincided with Zdeno Chara’s first-place finish in the Norris Trophy derby.

With another nomination this past season, Chara nearly gave his club the hat trick. But the aging, minute-munching middle line of defense bowed to Chicago’s Duncan Keith this time.

Regardless, the distribution of votes and awards spoke to the continued effectiveness of Boston’s defensive system. From the two-way connoisseur up front to the crease custodian, there is always a firm foundation to build around.

Of course, the fact that only individual players were holding hardware after the season spoke to Boston’s continued need for a better strike force. There will be no more President’s Trophies, Prince of Wales Trophies or Stanley Cups in New England until the Bruins offense rivals the defense’s elite caliber and consistency.

4. Johnny B Gone

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The salary cap inflicted its first major dent in Boston’s 2014-15 plans when Jarome Iginla signed as a free agent with Colorado. Theoretically, that could have been the last of this year's first-rate cap losses, but it would not even be the biggest.

Per CapGeek, the veteran forward earned his carry-over bonuses with the Bruins in a 30-goal, 31-assists, one-year stint. As a consequence, with nearly an extra $4.8 million on its 2014-15 payroll, Boston could not accommodate the $5.3 million cap hit Iginla is now imposing on the Avs.

It was one thing, though, to fumble a free agent due to a shortage of cap space. It was another issue when, three months later, the Bruins sought to free up space by trading defenseman Johnny Boychuk.

By failing to retain Iginla, Boston lost a hungry veteran of the league. But by dealing Boychuk to the New York Islanders for an assortment of draft picks, it sacrificed a six-year veteran of the organization.

On top of that, the return package has no means of shoring up the shortcomings elsewhere on the roster for this season.

Besides his role in fortifying the blue-line brigade, Boychuk had grown to deliver crucial intangibles to the locker room. Per Caryn Switaj of the team’s website, among numerous player reactions at the time, fellow defender Zdeno Chara said, “I think that we all really feel that Johnny is such a great teammate. Always loyal and always willing to do whatever is being asked for him.”

For what it’s worth, the trade occurred on October 4, the day of the team’s preseason finale. In the subsequent two weeks, the Bruins started the regular season at 2-4-0, with only one regulation win and a three-game pointless skid in that span.

For a variety of reasons, more than one of them stemming from the lopsided Boychuk trade, they have yet to respectably recover.

3. Livid Lucic

An overwhelming slew of sources made it impossible to believe that Milan Lucic did anything short of tarnishing the second-round handshake line. Montreal’s Alexei Emelin and Dale Weise both took verbal abuse from the hulking winger following their 3-1 series clincher at TD Garden.

In the aftermath of, well, the aftermath, the Boston Globe’s Kevin Paul Dupont noted, “According to a report on Yahoo Sports, in which Weise was quoted, Lucic told Weise, ‘I’m going to [expletive] kill you next year.’ Toronto Star columnist Bruce Arthur wrote much the same thing.” Harrison Mooney’s Yahoo report also mentioned Arthur’s account.

You get the picture. After doing far too little to avert the on-ice letdown to begin with, Lucic did nothing to remedy the situation. He only invited an onslaught of detrimental attention to himself and his team for behavior beneath his athletic kin.

And remember, this was less than a month after Lucic incurred a $5,000 fine for a spearing infraction during the first round. The fact that his focus and emotional control worsened in the ensuing weeks means he warrants extra scrutiny going forward.

In their state near the halfway mark of this season, the 18-15-3 Bruins are practically in a pseudo-playoff situation. They will need Lucic to set his extracurricular inclinations aside for the balance of this uphill plow, let alone if they get back to the real thing by spring.

Any new episodes in the neighborhood of his 2014 second-round performance and invective ought to threaten his long-term future in Boston.

2. Little Depth Beyond David

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From the eve of the regular season through the dying days of December, David Krejci has yet to go more than two-and-a-half weeks without an injury.

Entering Monday night’s action, the first-line center has appeared in each of the last five games. But he had missed a full month beforehand, managing only 11 appearances between his belated season debut on October 13 and two other stretches of missed time in November.

When he has dressed, Krejci has tallied 11 points to help the Bruins to a 10-6-0 record. In 20 games without his services, Boston is 8-9-3.

The aforementioned Lucic, Krejci’s longtime left wing, has a fairly mediocre 17 points in 36 overall appearances this season. He has tallied 11 of those, including three of his six goals, in the 16 games Krejci has played.

While this is the quintessential team game, those stats speak to a greater-than-average impact from one individual’s presence. In turn, the trend reaffirms the shortage of adequate, reliable offense from the top to the bottom of this team’s depth chart.

The Bruins need to replenish their depth and prove that they can compensate for anyone's absence before they reenter the elite echelon.

1. Chara’s Injury

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To exacerbate the aforementioned Boychuk trade, the aforementioned Chara left an October 23 bout with none other than the Islanders. Following that night’s 3-2 loss, the Bruins learned that their captain would miss no less than a month of action with a knee injury.

Precisely seven weeks would elapse before the captain returned to game action December 11 versus Chicago. In the interim, the team was essentially down two defensive veterans on its bench. It did not help when Adam McQuaid, who has yet to return, joined the injury list on November 19.

In terms of the future, though, Chara’s injury should spawn reconsideration as to how heavily the Bruins lean on their 37-year-old tower. This was, after all, five months after his health and effectiveness were a part of the playoff postmortem for the second straight season.

Based on his performance in the deciding phases of Boston’s last two downfalls, it is safe to assume Chara is past his peak. The Bruins cannot keep forcing him to take on top-tier duty for all 82-plus games in a season. They need to do more to preserve him in advance of the most critical, defining games.

If neither the 2013 Stanley Cup Final nor the 2014 Atlantic Division Final drove home that notion, then this past autumn should.