from Joe Haggerty of CSNNE,

Along with the general softness across this team’s roster and the intermittent offensive droughts, there are times when the Bruins want things to be easy. It’s a natural human trait, to be sure, but it’s also the sign of a team that doesn’t consistently set the bar high enough. The intensity, desire and compete level of the recently great B’s teams hasn’t been there on most nights.

That needs to change, and the players say they're well aware of that. Good thing, because this three-game road trip -- tonight at Ottawa, Saturday at Florida and Sunday at Tampa Bay -- could make or break their season. The Senators and Panthers are desperately trying to overtake the B's for the final playoff spot, and the Lightning will be looking for revenge after their recent loss at TD Garden.

The simple truth is: The Eastern Conference is completely wide open this spring. The Islanders and Lightning have talent, but they're inexperienced and they have goaltending questions. The Penguins are a top-heavy team that doesn’t feel all that dangerous once you get past Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. The Red Wings are an interesting mix of youth and veterans, but nobody is printing up Stanley Cup final invites for them at this point. The Capitals, who do have one of the best players in the world in Alex Ovechkin, can be exploited defensively. The Rangers and Canadiens -- full of speed, good goaltending and talented D-corps units -- are probably the two most formidable teams, and would present the most problematic matchups for Boston.

But the pathways are there for the Bruins if they could somehow get their stuff together before the third week in April.

Unfortunately, they’ve given few reasons to be confident that will change with 12 games remaining in the regular season. Tuesday's game against Buffalo was just another sore-eyed example of that.

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