from Allan Muir of Sports Illustrated,

If any team in the Eastern Conference is perfectly built to handle the pressures of a tight playoff race, it would be the Bruins. This is a veteran group, loaded with men who earned the Stanley Cup in 2011, backstopped by reigning Vezina Trophy winner Tuukka Rask and coached by a Jack Adams honoree, Claude Julien. They’re battle-tested. Proven.

So how is it that this team, which just eight days ago held the first wild card berth in the East, has dropped five straight and is on the verge of being punted into ninth place tonight if the Senators beat the Sharks?

On the surface, there’s a shocking lack of desperation in the Bruins, an absence of an emotional response to their dire situation. That’s inexcusable. This is a team that was handed a chance last week to bury its two nearest pursuers, Ottawa and Florida, and failed to match the intensity of their opponents on either night. Outside of Brad Marchand and Patrice Bergeron, not a single Bruin can argue that he’s been up to the challenge.

Fingers are already being pointed at Julien, whose decision making can be inscrutable at times. His recent over-reliance on defenseman Dennis Seidenberg, for instance, is hard to comprehend beyond a blind allegiance to a veteran who’s gotten the job done in the past.

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