BOSTON -- I once met Bob Denver at a book signing, and he was wearing his white Gilligan hat.
Here he was 30 years removed from his prime-time television career, and he was still clinging to old glories and milking his Li'l Buddy persona for all it was worth. Unfortunately for the Bruins, sports don't work like that. If you finish atop the Eastern Conference one season, there are no rewards in the next campaign and beyond.
Through 20 games of this 2009-10 season, including Monday night's awful 4-1 loss to the New York Islanders at TD Garden, the Bruins are playing as though their stellar performances of last season somehow count in this season's standings. Sure, they've shown glimpses of the Cup-contending team they were supposed to be, but for the most part there has been a lot of excuse making, a lot of "aw shucks, we'll get them next time," and not nearly enough hard-nosed play in front of the nets and along the walls.
For the Bruins' sake, they'd better hope Monday night was rock bottom. Sure, the Islanders are much improved from the team that finished dead last in 2008-09. They've lost in regulation just twice in their past 13 outings, and the work ethic instilled in them by coach -- and former mentor for the Bruins' Providence farm club -- Scott Gordon never seems to wane. But coming off one of the most disappointing regular-season losses of the decade and staring at an upcoming stretch of four straight road games, the Bruins should have been better in every facet of the game and at least gone down swinging.
After the game, pretty much every player agreed that the team was flat. Boston coach Claude Julien said, "Tonight is one of those games, you can look at the stats and you can take those stats and throw them in the garbage. We're 70 percent on draws, you outshoot them, big deal. They were still the better team because they're the team that wanted it more. They wanted it more than we did. It's as simple as that."
Of course, no one seemed to have an answer to the most important questions. Why did a team that entered the game 10th in the East play with no emotion from the outset against a team ahead of it in the standings? Why did more than 90 seconds of 5-on-3 play, when the Bruins were down just 1-0, turn into a game of hot potato along the perimeter of the attack zone after a couple of Zdeno Chara slap shots on goal? Why did the Isles have the opportunity to score three goals (all of their non-empty-net offense) off inexplicable giveaways?
If the players can't answer these questions, it's time for them to have a chance to sit and think about them. Julien often talks about ice-time distribution as his ultimate tool to cajole his players to perform. But in Julien's two-plus seasons behind the Boston bench, only Phil Kessel and -- to a lesser extent -- Blake Wheeler have felt the coach's wrath in that regard.
There's no telling how many more miscues by Dennis Wideman it will take for Julien to cut the blueliner's minutes. If Patrice Bergeron was a minus-4 Monday night (and he was), linemates Mark Recchi and Marco Sturm should've been minus-8 (they were only minus-2) for leaving their center to fight for every inch while they pretty much just observed. One game after a 10-game scoreless stretch, Michael Ryder fired just one shot on net; that's not exactly the way to earn that paycheck.
Maybe the team is suddenly caught up in waiting for Milan Lucic and Marc Savard to return. Lucic has started practicing, and Savard could follow suit by the end of the week. It's a shame if that's the case because Lucic and Savard might not be at their peak for a few games after their return, and by then, the hole the Bruins are digging could be even deeper.
Like the season as a whole, the loss to the Islanders did provide a few signs that the 2008-09 Bruins' spirit still lives in the current club. Stats aside, Bergeron seemed to be doing all he could to shake his slumbering comrades. David Krejci continued to hit his stride and created some golden opportunities for teammates, particularly an impressively active Wheeler. Somehow, Vladimir Sobotka found time to throw four hits in just 9:36 of ice time.
And that's where the problem lies. Some guys are pulling their weight, and others aren't. The same four lines, however, keep rolling out onto the ice. It's time to start putting the guys who seem to be trying the most together and see whether they can generate something. Until Savard and Lucic get back, there's really no way to send a message with a demotion or a trip to the press box as a healthy scratch. So in-game ice time is the only way to send a wake-up call.
Four years after Denver's death, I regret playing into his fantasy that he really was Gilligan. For the Bruins to avoid similar regrets, they had better start playing for the success of the 2009-10 squad and forget about the triumphs of the past.