It looks like Boston Bruins General Manager Don Sweeney is shutting down Hampus Lindholm, who broke his kneecap blocking a shot during the team’s Nov. 12 comeback win in St. Louis.
“He’s going to have a follow-up next week to remove a little bit of the hardware, because it created some irritation as he was going through the rehab,” said Bruins GM Don Sweeney while meeting with beat writers on Sunday at Warrior Arena where the team was practicing. “Again, the healing process has gone long and gone well. He’ll have no setbacks moving forward. That being said, it’s going to take a little more time for him to heal naturally. And we just don’t want to put a timeline on when he’ll be back to 100% so I think it’s more constructive to allow him to not continue to push the way he had been pushing, and to let it heal a little more naturally.”
The Bruins are desperate to make up lost ground in the stretch run for a playoff spot, and they’re now trying to run this race without Charlie McAvoy as well. The controversial story of his medical treatment and return to play against Canada on Saturday has given way to team care in which Sweeney is confident, but he twice turned down reporters’ questions on what happened in Montreal under Team USA watch. Sweeney served as general manager for Team Canada.
Bottom line: Upon taking over for Jim Montgomery at the 20-game mark of the season, Interim Coach Joe Sacco publicly prioritized the Bruins’ defensive game, the structure, the effort, the resilience, all things that had been too spotty.
Now they are missing key cogs in gluing together their system game.
Instead on Saturday night at home in their return game vs. Anaheim, Nikita Zadorov and Mason Lohrei were Boston’s two biggest minute munchers. One is a wild horse and the other a wild foal.
There was a time when it made sense for management to ride this out with the abiding belief in the 2023-24 team’s success and the logic that, if the season and its opportunities last long enough, then what management reasoned last summer is worth waiting for. But too much has gone wrong, and this is no longer a fair fight.
The 82-game schedule, it was thought in this space, would give the Bruins many opportunities to find their game, for individuals to rediscover the 2023-24 mojo gone missing. And we’re not talking about Brad Marchand’s three, summer-of-’24 surgeries or Jeremy Swayman’s contract holdout. I’m not even talking about Zadorov or Elias Lindholm, this is about the several returning players who waited until midseason to show us anything close to midseason form. That is the mystery that tipped this season the wrong way. The rest? A perfect storm.
So close and yet so far
The Bruins (27-24-7) may only be a single point out of the Eastern Conference’s playoff eight, but their three main competitors for a Wild Card spot have a game in hand. Of more relevance is the home-away breakdown of the Bruins’ remaining schedule.
This heavily compromised roster will try to fend off the Atlantic Division-leading Toronto Maple Leafs on Tuesday at TD Garden and the last-gasp N.Y. Islanders on Thursday. Then it’s off to the road, where the Bruins have won nine of 27 this season, for 14 of the final 22 games.
Once he had the coach of his choosing in place, Sweeney’s decade as GM can been characterized by regular-season excellence and a struggle in the playoffs. Averaging 50 wins per 82 outings is a rare feat. Sweeney and his help must now decide where they fall on this group of players.
Would this same roster contend for the Cup with a simple little do-over? That’s not how the business is run, so Sweeney indicated he will be listening on a lot of players. He talked down the idea of making a big splash at the deadline.
With Sunday’s hat trick boosting his career total to 882 goals, Alex Ovechkin is bearing down on Wayne Gretzky’s all-time, regular-season career record of 894 goals.
Glen Sather, understandably loyal to Gretzky, told a crowd of Calgary fans during a live-audience episode of the 32 Thoughts podcast that he didn’t want Ovechkin to break the record because he didn’t want a Russian to have the record.
Still hockey-provincial after all these years.
But Rink Rap has a different objection to the passing of the torch: What about the players’ playoff totals? Why in the world do they not count when it comes to tallying up career achievements? The playoffs are the ultimate challenge where the goals are most important.
If Ovechkin can beat Gretzky’s career goal-scoring mark including his playoff totals, more power to him. But that will take 53 more goals, not 13.
Gretzky regular season: 1,487 games played, 894 goals.
Gretzky playoffs: 208 GP, 122 goals.
Gretzky’s career totals: 1,695 GP, 1,016 goals.
Ovechkin regular season: 1,467 GP, 882 goals.
Ovechkin playoffs: 151 GP, 72 goals.
Ovechkin’s career totals: 1,618 GP, 964 goals.
Gordie Howe, by the way: 1,767 NHL regular-season games and 801 goals; 157 NHL playoff games and 68 goals for NHL totals of 1,924 games and 869 goals. ALSO: 419 World Hockey Association regular-season games and 174 goals plus 78 WHA playoff games and 28 goals. WHA totals 497 GP and 202 goals. If one counts his WHA goals, then Howe’s career totals would become 2,421 GP and 1,071 goals.
The Bruins host Washington on April Fools Day. By then, Ovechkin may very well have already broken the regular-season NHL record and been showered with global attention. If he can pull it off, it’s an amazing feat by an all-time great goal scorer. But the real NHL record for goals is 1,016. Let’s see if Ovie can reach that in the twilight of his career.
Rink Rap with Mick Colageo 