Belichick needs outside help, Pats should improve pass rush
The Boston Bruins are one of the lowest-scoring teams in the National Hockey League.
Entering Monday’s games, the Carolina Hurricanes were the only team that had scored fewer goals than the Bruins and Tampa Bay Lightning.
But, despite Monday’s lethargic performance in the loss to Ottawa, don’t dismiss the Bruins’ chances of making a playoff run just yet.
The Bruins have been decimated by injuries, especially to their most prolific forwards.
And they traded away their leading goal scorer off last year’s team, Phil Kessel (36 goals), in the offseason.
But when they finally get healthy, they have enough components to be dangerous including two reliable goaltenders.
Boston has used 28 different skaters (excluding goalies) already this season and has still managed to stay among the top eight in the Eastern Conference.
The top eight teams from each conference qualify for the playoffs.
Their leading scorer from a year ago, Marc Savard, has missed 20 games and will be out another week or two. Current leading scorer Patrice Bergeron just returned to the lineup Monday against Ottawa. He had missed six games.
Hard-nosed Milan Lucic, who creates turnovers with his jolting body checks and physical presence and also has a scoring touch, is just back after missing 32 games with two different injuries. Leading goal scorer Marco Sturm missed Monday’s game with a leg injury.
Valuable defensemen Mark Stuart, Andrew Ference and Dennis Wideman have also been sidelined for at least five games apiece. Wideman had 50 points a year ago. Stuart has just come back after sitting out 14 games.
Injuries are part of hockey but to have this many injuries to so many important players is unusual.
It also cripples your special teams, especially your power play.
The Olympic break may help the Bruins players who didn’t make an Olympic team roster to heal up.
— Larry Mahoney
Belichick should consider outside help
Here’s a dilemma for Patriots fans — who do you root for now, the Colts or the Jets?
Perhaps the Indianapolis Colts knew what they were doing after all when they essentially conceded their Week 16 matchup with the New York Jets by pulling Peyton Manning and many other starters while holding a five-point lead in the third quarter.
Had the Colts won that game, the Jets would have been doing what the Patriots are doing now — waiting ’til next year.
But the Colts, and the Cincinnati Bengals the following weekend, both decided to rest their starters against the Jets, and now the Jets are one win from the Super Bowl.
The Patriots, meanwhile, are now in search of a defensive coordinator to replace Dean Pees, whose contract with the team is expiring and won’t be back with the team next fall.
He’s the fall guy for a defense that ultimately couldn’t stop anyone in the final minutes of the fourth quarter with the game on the line, and whose play evoked such little trust from head coach Bill Belichick that he adopted the fourth-and-two philosophy against the Colts in a play that defined the 2009-10 season.
Of course, everyone knows Belichick is really the defensive coordinator … and offensive coordinator … and head coach … and general manager.
And that’s the biggest dilemma facing Patriots fans in the coming months.
Belichick admitted last week that with the loss of the likes of Charlie Weis, Romeo Crennel and Josh McDaniels over the years that he has fewer places to go for advice, and fewer dissenting opinions to consider.
What’s evolved from the ever-changing Patriots coaching staff is a concentration of everything in Belichick’s hands and mind, similar to when he took his first head coaching job at Cleveland in the mid-1990s — a situation that didn’t work.
It’s unlikely, but here’s hoping Belichick goes outside the organization to find a new defensive coordinator, and perhaps a new offensive coordinator, too.
And here’s hoping he won’t be too stubborn to listen.
In the meantime, you have your choice — Peyton or the Jets?
— Ernie Clark
Pats need to improve anemic pass rush
Looking for some reasons for optimism or good omens while watching the hated J-E-T-S, Jets, Jets, Jets advance to the AFC championship game?
There aren’t many when it comes to the view from Patriots Nation in late January, but there’s no reason to think this reality check of a season won’t wake up the Patriots brain trust and force them to make some adjustments, adaptations and improvements to their formula for success.
The NFL draft is still more than three months away, but with eight overall selections and four in the first two rounds, the Patriots are poised once again to be movers and shakers on the newly-expanded draft weekend (April 22-24).
With four picks among the first 53 and the Oakland Raiders’ first-round pick in 2011 (for Richard Seymour), the Pats can move up to get players they feel can help them immediately.
Their No. 1 goal should be to drastically improve an anemic pass rush. Whether it comes from a trade — I can hear those Julius Peppers rumors starting anew — or free agency and/or the draft, the Pats have to land a sack specialist somehow.
The current buzz seems to center on extending Tom Brady’s contract and whether the Patriots can afford him. Um, seriously? Does anyone really think Brady and the Pats will part ways? Brady should be feeling like he owes both the team and fans for a lackluster return to duty. NFL Comeback Player of the Year Award notwithstanding, this wasn’t even close to a vintage, Brady-esque season. He looked more unprepared and confused in the Baltimore playoff game than Matt Cassel did in his first start.
The departure of the old guard may continue with reliable, big-play back Kevin Faulk maybe considering retirement and that just adds to New England’s offseason shopping list.
The key area to watch is free agency. More than any other offseason activity, it is crucial, given New England’s inability to land productive players lately, be they big-dollar guys (Adalius Thomas) or under-the-radar types (Joey Galloway). The Patriots must spend more wisely and land players who came to be known as Belichick guys — players who are versatile, smart and productive.
So bring on the offseason and the free-agency ides of March, but until then, I’m rooting for a team that used to be called the “Ain’ts” and whose fans attended games with paper bags over their heads, to go marching out of Miami with their first Vince Lombardi trophy.
— Andrew Neff