Boston Bruins: 4 Reasons They Will Not Repeat as Stanley Cup Champions

The odds are against the Boston Bruins successfully retaining their Stanley Cup title in 2012.

If there is any kind of “but” clause to append to that opening sentence sometime later, no one will know the details until sometime at the tail end of the coming season.

As the NHL landscape stands now, however, there are just too many overwhelming factors working against the defending champions and their endeavor to repeat.

These factors are not so much numerous as they are potent. Come what may, there is no reason not to face the facts and understand the top four reasons these Bruins will be limited to one recent title.

Holdovers Equal Hangover

Since he was enlisted as the team’s general manager, and especially since he brought Cam Neely into the front office and put Claude Julien behind the bench, Peter Chiarelli has been commendably delicate with the foundation he started.

He is not about to change that habit. By keeping such a sizeable corps of his first championship team, Chiarelli boosts his chances of adding at least one or two more Cups before his tenure is over.

The kicker is he and his employees will have to wait until 2013 or 2014 to make that happen. Rebuilding years may be a thing of the past in Boston, but 2011-12 will be a recovering year for these Bruins, who have 16 regular skaters plus Tim Thomas coming back on short rest from last year’s marathon.

This is not to say they cannot contend with what they have in the coming year. They just won’t go all the way.

Power-Play Problems Persist

In the absence of Marc Savard, the Bruins subsisted on mere power-play table scraps through the better part of the 2010-11 regular season and playoffs.

Any idea who was the team’s top point-getter with the man-advantage during the postseason? It was the oft-maligned and since-discharged Tomas Kaberle, who logged five assists in 25 games.

Elsewhere, Mark Recchi and Michael Ryder each logged two goals and two helpers on the postseason power play and are each gone as well. And Recchi led the Bruins in the 2010-11 regular season with 17 power-play points while Ryder tied Milan Lucic for third with 14.

With those departures and so few newcomers, this leaves Patrice Bergeron, Zdeno Chara, David Krejci and Lucic to try to lead a team-wide acceleration in 5-on-4 production. And none of them had any more than eight goals or 15 points during the last regular season, nor any more than two goals or four points in the playoffs.

Too Many Hungry Challengers

While one may not have any reason to doubt the Bruins' continued hunger for another title, they cannot control the fact that other franchises are still unfulfilled. In turn, those teams are going to find a way to reap a bonus scrap of incentive in the postseason.

Within the past three years, the Pittsburgh Penguins, the Chicago Blackhawks and the Bruins have all risen from irrelevance and lived up to Aerosmith’s “You’ve got to lose to know how to win” homily. Look for that trend to continue in 2011-12.

The team whose present situation is most comparable to Boston’s last year is undoubtedly the Washington Capitals. They and their fans are weary of collapsing in the second round, and head coach Bruce Boudreau’s hot seat is not unlike that of Julien.

The San Jose Sharks, Vancouver Canucks and Tampa Bay Lightning are likewise in a primed position to partake in the vindication craze.

And even without Sidney Crosby as we know him, the Penguins could still reassert themselves as perennial top dogs in the Eastern Conference with a healthy Evgeni Malkin, among others.

It Doesn’t Happen in Hockey Anymore

Of the four major North American sports leagues, the NHL has gone the longest without seeing a repeat champion. Specifically, the league is going on 13 seasons without one.

Since the Detroit Red Wings pulled it off in 1997-98, only three reigning Cup carriers have so much as returned to the finals. Since 2001, only two defending champions have made it through the second round of the subsequent playoffs.

In the post-lockout, salary-cap world, this trend is all the less inclined to let up anytime soon.