TSN.ca Staff
12/21/2003
The Boston Bruins are struggling and it hasn't gone unnoticed in the team's board room. Owner Jeremy Jacobs and president Harry Sinden took turns ripping the club this weekend after the Bruins' record dropped to 2-6-5-1 in their last 14 contests.
Jacobs told the Boston Globe that changes needed to be made and he was leaving that up to general manager Mike O'Connell. Jacobs also noted that he wouldn't want to be in O'Connell's shoes right now.
O'Connell agreed, saying sarcastically, "If I were him, I wouldn't want to be me, either."
Jacobs also told the Globe he wanted to see more from the players, voiced his disappointment over their apparent lack of effort, and said roster changes were within "vision."
Sinden echoed Jacobs' sentiments. He called the first period of Saturday's 2-1 loss to the lowly Carolina Hurricanes, "a walk-through" for the Bruins.
"I see a lot of things I don't like, things they could do better," Sinden told the Globe. "Their positional play is not good. I think we have enough to have a better team than we have right now. Do we have enough to do much? I don't know.
"We can't continue playing like this."
Sinden pointed to the 5-0 loss to Calgary on Thursday as evidence that the Bruins needed more than just a kick-start.
"There's no way you could say Calgary played very well," Sinden noted. "Calgary played a poor game and they beat the hell out of us. That's scary. They didn't have to do anything...Calgary comes in and they're a very average team. There's something seriously wrong here when we can't perform at home against Calgary when they're playing poorly.
"It's disturbing. I think our talent level is in the top third of the league. It's certainly no less than half. I don't know what (the problem) is."
Sinden also said that he didn't put any blame on coach Mike Sullivan. In fact, he praised the coach's dedication and hinted that Sullivan would remain behind the bench for the entire season.
Sullivan thinks the Bruins will be able to turn things around.
"It seems like when you go through these stretches, everything becomes difficult," Sullivan said. "You can't just flip a switch and expect to get out of it. It's a process and you find some bumps in the road. But, I think if we bring that type of effort, that focus and we play as smart as we did without the puck, I think we'll get the result we're looking for."