Surely you can't be serious.
And what does losing Lucic have to do with Rask having a very, very long year?
Surely I can be. Mark it, revisit it, and we'll see if I'm right. Lucic was consistently one of Boston's most productive players on the ice and constantly Boston's most physical. The last time Boston had a roster this soft was coincidentally immediately before Lucic's addition to the roster when Dave Lewis was running the show. When guys like Stan Chistov and Brad Boyes were forced to do the heavy lifting for the team (not a joke).
Boston now has what has to be one of the weakest winger pools in the NHL. Eriksson and Marchand are easily the Bruins best and they're best suited for second line roles on good days. Behind them are a slew of unproven at best hopefuls. Pastrnak, Connoly, Griffith, Ferlin, Florek. It's hard to see any of them stepping into a top line role anytime soon if ever, or even into a consistent top 6 role, and asking them to do so is setting everyone up for disappointment.
That's not even touching on the defensive issues now facing this team. An aging Chara, a Seidenberg who hasn't been in top form since 2011, an overpaid bottom pairing Dman in McQuaid, an unproven commodity in Joe Morrow, and Torey Krug.
Where is Boston strong? Up the middle and goalie. Other then testing the theory that center and tender are the most important positions what do people honestly see this roster accomplishing? Even our organizational strength is highly dependent on others. Krejci is a setup man, who's he going to set up this year? In my opinion this is year people start to realize he is more dependent on his wingers then vice versa. Bergeron will no doubt bring his Selke level defensive game once again but will also bring the consistent offensive production with it. Spooner slots in at 3rd line C, but barring injury isn't pushing one of the other two out and as such, will have fairly limited impact. I don't even know where Kelly slots in any more, most likely on Spooner's wing knowing Julien.
There'll be no "big or bad" this season, and that's the only identity the Bruins have ever been able to succeed with. They've lost by far (I can't stress that enough) their most physical player. Every other time they've ventured off of that beaten apth it has failed horribly.
It will be a long year for Rask because there will be little to no offense. Without more major changes I can easily see this team finishing well into the bottom half of the league for offensive production. It will be Thomas in 2006/2007 all over again. No matter how many times he stands on his head, the team in front of him will allow more quality opportunities. He'll be an easy whipping boy.
I'm painting an incredibly bleak picture I know and it's all just opinion (I don't claim to be psychic) , but to be fair this isn't our first go around. People here didn't believe trading Kessel would kill this team offensively, but it did and they didn't get it back until they went out an acquired Horton. This Lucic deal will be much the same. For some reason some Boston fans too readily dismiss the value of wingers and we really shouldn't. They were already down a top winger, now they're down two.
And you did ask.
Oh, and I wouldn't be at all surprised to see LA win the cup. That's my bet anyway.
