With four losses in five games after the All-Star game, the folks creating NHL Power Rankings (which all came out before Saturday’s loss) had to decide just how much to ding the Bruins for their recent slide.
To keep power ranking lists from becoming repetitive, the different outlets usually include a different side angle for each team too.
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Here’s where the Bruins landed on the lists and what the different sites said about them:
The Athletic
Rank: 3
The Athletic chose to write Haiku for every team. Really. Also the plural of Haiku is Haiku. Here’s the 5-7-5 on the Bruins:
“Minus Bergeron
Boston still feels incomplete
First in East or not”
ESPN
Rank: 3
Unlike the ESPN power rankers didn’t use iambic pentameter, trochaic foot or any other poetry devices. They simply picked players to watch as the trade deadline approaches: They chose Jake DeBrusk and wrote:
“Jake DeBrusk. Boston has explored trade partners for Jake DeBrusk before, and we’ll be watching to see if they do so again. DeBrusk is notably without a contract after this season, and given Boston’s recent struggles it could be time for GM Don Sweeney to shake things up. DeBrusk might be a valuable asset in helping the Bruins fill in their gaps.
NHL.com
Rank: 2
NHL.com chose to list each team’s most tradable player. Amalie Benjamin wrote:
“I could say the Bruins’ most tradable player is Linus Ullmark, but I don’t believe it. I believe that their strength lies in their goaltending and, as they learned last season, should not deviate from the two-headed goalie monster scenario that has been their backbone this season. So, no, not Ullmark. I’d say it’s one of their up-and-coming, bottom-six players, like Jakub Lauko or John Beecher, who have low salaries and could be useful pieces elsewhere. But the wild card is Jake DeBrusk, a forward and pending UFA. If the Bruins don’t see a way toward a long-term future for a player who has asked the Bruins to be traded and rescinded that request, then DeBrusk might just be their best option on the market, but only if moving him makes them better in another area.”
SportsNet Canada
Rank: 2
It’s not entirely clear what SportsNet’s theme means. But their explanation has fun Canadian spellings.
“In honour of MLB rousing from its winter hibernation and teams infiltrating cities across Florida and Arizona, we decided to adopt a baseball theme for this edition of the power rankings and identify some Cy Young guys for all 32 teams.
Scoring goals is ultimately the goal of the game, right? So here’s a peek at the players who eschew the pass in favour of firing that disc in the net themselves.”
For the Bruins they picked DeBrusk. It’s pretty unclear what he has in common with the old-timey pitcher. They wrote:
“Jake DeBrusk had a nice bounce-back last year, but he’s sitting 12-13 right now and likely departs Boston as a UFA this summer.”
That’s probably true but doesn’t make the Cy Young stuff make sense.
