Kalman: Lost Late Leads, Struggles Against Lottery-Bound Teams Prove Bruins Aren't Contenders

BOSTON (CBS) - A couple more performances like the one the Bruins produced Tuesday against the 28th-ranked Toronto Maple Leafs and general manager Don Sweeney might as well hang a for-sale sign on Loui Eriksson and everyone not named Patrice Bergeron or Tuukka Rask.

For the second time in three home games the Bruins squandered a two-goal lead to a team closer to the bottom of the NHL than the middle of the pack, and this time they weren't able to grind out two points.

The Bruins took a 3-1 lead 1:21 into the third period but let the Maple Leafs rally to tie the score. PA Parenteau's overtime power-play goal sent the Bruins home with just one point in the standings after a 3-2 loss at TD Garden.

Back on Jan. 23 the Bruins lost a 2-0 lead in the second period to Columbus, a rare team looking up at Toronto in the standings. But Ryan Spooner saved the day with a goal in the shootout. The two points were nice, but that win might come back to haunt the Bruins because of the tie-breaker involving regulation and overtime wins, which might come into play in the clogged-up Eastern Conference playoff race.

The Bruins, who could have moved into second place in the Atlantic Division with a win, are clinging to a wild-card spot with 58 points, one ahead of second wild-card Pittsburgh and New Jersey.

Although the Columbus game might be one Boston regrets come mid-April, the one point they missed out on against Toronto is sure to have an impact on the Bruins' positioning inside or outside of the playoff structure.

"Any time you lead 3-1 you want to be able to keep the lead and end up winning the hockey game," defenseman Dennis Seidenberg said. "So we definitely, that's one of those games we let slip out of our hands and I think everybody's pretty annoyed right now."

The Bruins have made a routine of losing two-goal leads this season at home. You can go all the way back to Oct. 12 when the Bruins led 2-0 against Tampa Bay and wound up with a 6-3 loss. They've lost three games that they led by two in the third period and also pulled out that Columbus game. The Bruins have lost five times at home this season when leading by two at any point.

The most distressing part of the Bruins' situation has to be that they haven't improved in this area from the start of the season.

"I thought we learned from the beginning season," said center David Krejci, who had one goal and one assist against Toronto. "We got a lot better. But today I thought I thought we came out hard. We came out, in the third period especially, to win the game. We got two quick goals. I feel like after that we kind of stopped playing on our toes and we started playing on our heels. You can maybe talk about a couple of lucky bounces on their side, a couple of tips in the high slot. Just kind of tough luck, but like I said I guess we stopped playing to win after we scored those two quick goals."

Losing third-period leads is bad enough. But where were the Bruins during the first two periods against a Maple Leafs team that had lost nine of its past 10 games and had scored three goals in its past four games? The Bruins were nursing a 1-0 lead until the Maple Leafs finally cashed in on a game-tying tip by Daniel Winnik 9:56 into the second period. The Bruins were on the wrong side of the 5-on-5 shot-attempt chart throughout the game and were out-attempted for the gam 58-49 at even strength at the conclusion. That's unacceptable, especially when the Bruins' vaunted power play was kept of the board in four attempts. Boston's power play has been shut out in seven of its past eight games.

Many of the Bruins players like to spew the cliché about any team in the NHL being able to beat another one on any given day. But that only becomes true when a team with playoff aspirations like the Bruins sleepwalks through 40-plus minutes against an also-ran like the Maple Leafs and then can't even close out a two-goal lead with 18 minutes to go.

Unless Sweeney can pull a giant rabbit out of his hat and make a trade that will not only improve the Bruins' play in their own end but also instill some of that killer instinct that has been lacking, he's really going to have to consider maximizing his assets. The other cliché the players love about anything happening once they're in the playoffs isn't mathematically correct when it comes to a team that has such a hard time exploiting the dregs of the League.

Teams that lose leads to Toronto and Columbus don't make shocking postseason runs, they join those bottom feeders at the NHL lottery during the playoffs.

Matt Kalman covers the Bruins for CBSBoston.com and also contributes to NHL.com and several other media outlets. Follow him on Twitter @TheBruinsBlog.