NHL Trades: Boston Bruins' Roster Should Be Fine the Way It Is for Now

Tuesday and Thursday night were hardly the first time that either Ondrej Pavelec or Jose Theodore had parsimoniously stymied the Boston Bruins.

While that fact does not thoroughly absolve the Bruins themselves from their two straight regulation losses, it is a testament to their stability and capability. It takes an especially confident and competent goaltender to outright frustrate a team that has flaunted this much depth and persistence, and that’s just what Boston has encountered two games in a row.

A goalie does not confront 40 shots in a 60-minute time frame, stop the vast bulk of them and win the game all by accident. Boston’s own tandem of Tuukka Rask and Tim Thomas, who incidentally have combined for a meager three goals-against on 65 shots faced these last two games, are regularly living proof of that.

One more blink by the opposing stopper and one fewer by Bruins’ the crease custodian and maybe the active outlook would be a tad more savory for the New England faithful. Or better yet, in Thursday night’s case, a few more inches away from the post in the first or second period might have meant an eventual game-winner for Patrice Bergeron, Dennis Seidenberg or Joe Corvo.

But just remember who this team has been dealing with lately. And be sure to put emphasis on “team” because members of every forward line and every defensive pairing had multiple shots on goal in these two toils.

Now in his second full season as a consensus NHL starter, Pavelec has been luckless when visiting the TD Garden. But whether his place of business has been Philips Arena or the MTS Centre, home dates with the Bruins as opposed road outings have been as different as, well, Atlanta and Winnipeg.

Tuesday night, the Bruins’ first visit to the Jets, was Pavelec’s fourth career home game against Boston. In each of them, he has faced 40 shots or more but allowed a mere seven regulation goals and earned seven points with a 3-0-1 record. His only drawback was a shootout loss to Rask on Nov. 19, 2009.

In the effort to rinse out the vinegar from Tuesday’s streak-stopping 2-1 loss, the Bruins faced a seasoned journeyman who has been a Boston nemesis for a decade. Theodore’s 40-save performance backboned a 2-0 Florida Panthers’ victory that unfolded in a manner sequentially reminiscent of Game 7 of the 2004 Eastern Conference quarterfinals.

Just like in that game―which Bergeron, Montreal-turned-Boston coach Claude Julien and Theodore all might recall―a scoreless tie persisted until the waning moments of regulation, when the visitors finally broke the ice and then tacked on an empty-netter.

Both his series-clincher that year with the Montreal Canadiens and his triumph with Florida on Thursday have occurred more recently than Theodore’s last regulation loss to the Bruins. That would have been Game 1 of the 2004 first-round series.

Hey, some things are nearly impossible to change. Over the last seven-plus seasons, Theodore has worn five different NHL logos while the Spoked-B has been represented by two general managers, three coaches and a revolving door of padded personnel. Yet whenever these two parties cross paths, the southpaw stopper always earns a tangible gain.

At the same time, the Bruins have naturally had their own spoils of fortune, as evidenced by that banner they hung up two months ago and the 15-game point-getting streak that Pavelec helped to halt. Therefore, no changes need to be made in Julien’s locker room, with the possible exception of a booster dose of hunger.

Just be thankful that the New York Rangers and Henrik Lundqvist are not on deck for the next game. Instead, it’s another westward excursion out to Columbus on Saturday, where the Bruins will try to avoid treating the basement-bound Blue Jackets to a competitive game the same way they did at the Garden in an eventual shootout victory Nov. 17.

Their recent history of giving a whole lot to gain nothing combined with their recent history against Columbus should breed more than sufficient determination. And moving forward, the way this particular group handles opposing defenses and goaltenders of all levels ought to give general manager Peter Chiarelli a dense scope of what he has and what he might want for the homestretch and postseason.

The 2012 trading deadline is slated for Feb. 27. Between now and then, the Northeast Division-leading Bruins will play 33 games against 19 different opponents, including nine Western Conference teams and two more meetings apiece with Pavelec’s Jets and Theodore’s Panthers.

And much like last year, Boston will go on a six-game road trip for the second half of February, returning home the night after the deadline.

If, by the time that road trip rolls around, Chiarelli has deemed a key element to be lacking and/or a current constituent to be disposable, he may seek to repeat his history as a masterful deadline dealer. (For more on that, think back to no trades in 2008, Mark Recchi in 2009, Dennis Seidenberg in 2010 and Chris Kelly and Rich Peverley in 2011.)

But right now is not the time to fix what shows no egregious indication of trouble. Not in the wake of a near-perfect November, a surge from worst to second place in the conference and a pair of unfortunate results against two historically troublesome goaltenders.