With their 4-1 loss to the Montreal Canadiens on Thursday night, the 2024-25 Boston Bruins season is going from bad to worse. Not only does that loss keep them at the bottom of the Eastern Conference standings, it also extended their current losing streak to 10 consecutive games.
It is now tied for the second-longest losing streak in franchise history, and is their first 10-game losing streak since the 2009-10 season.
They are now just one loss away from tying the franchise record for longest losing streak, and two away from setting a new mark for futility. The 1924-25 Bruins hold that record, having lost 11 consecutive games.
The Bruins’ upcoming schedule would seem to give them a good chance for at least tying the mark as their next game is on Saturday against a Carolina Hurricanes team that is one of the best in the NHL.
They play at Buffalo on Sunday where they could theoretically set the new franchise mark.
There should have been an expectation for the Bruins to take a step backwards this season, but not even the biggest pessimist in Boston could have foreseen a season this bad.
They lacked a true No. 1 center, did not have a deep roster at forward or defense and lost a significant part of their goaltending advantage when they had to trade Linus Ullmark to the Ottawa Senators for salary cap purposes. There were signs a year ago that the Bruins were declining as a team, specifically as it related to their defensive metrics where they were one of the worst teams in the league at preventing scoring chances, but goaltending helped bail them out.
This season the goaltending is not there, and all of their flaws are being exposed.
With the Bruins now at the bottom of the conference standings and closing out the season with a whimper, it is time to start pondering what the future is for general manager Don Sweeney.
His offseason additions of Elias Lindholm and Nikita Zadorov have flopped on big contracts, he fired head coach Jim Montgomery who is now leading an incredible second-half turn around for the St. Louis Blues and traded team captain Brad Marchand at the deadline without even guaranteeing his team a first-round pick in return.
The Bruins have been trending in the wrong direction for a couple of years now, while they have failed to address their biggest need the past two years (finding top-line centers to replace the retired Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci). They have changed players, gone through multiple coaches and do not have any more cards to play except for a potential change at GM.
It might be time.
The only positive that might come from this season is that with each loss they increase their draft lottery odds to potentially add an impact player at the top of the 2025 NHL Draft. That is not what anybody in Boston expected for this season.