In the end, Robbie Ftorek seemed to have lost his grip on the Bruins. After surviving a nightmarish run, a stretch of hockey that saw his team win three of 15 games, Ftorek seemed to be “out of the woods” and safely employed as head coach of the Boston Bruins for the rest of the season.

Then, as the Bruins seemed ready to emerge from the forest, Ftorek took a strange U-Turn and headed back into the wilderness. As a result, he has been fired by an NHL team in the final 10 games of a season — for the second time in his career.

Make no mistake, Tuesday’s 2-1 loss at Phoenix was the final straw. It wasn’t just that the Bruins lost, it was the tinkering Ftorek was doing behind the bench. A team desperate for good karma, desperate for a strong finish, was being dissected like a frog in a biology class.

Defenseman Bryan Berard, a healthy scratch for the previous two games, was playing forward for the first time ever. Playing on the Bruins second line. Taking a spot that had been filled by Martin Lapointe in recent games. A spot that saw Lapointe, the poster boy for the Bruins struggles this season, blossom with four goals in two games.

Rob Zamuner has had an injury-plagued season. His most recent run of good health saw him play seven games from Feb. 27th to March 9th. He scored three goals in that stretch, and helped solidify a third line that added scoring depth to a team lacking it. When he returned to action Tuesday at Phoenix, he found himself on a fourth line with P.J. Stock and Krzysztof Oliwa — two men with a combined offensive total of one goal this year.

Critics have labeled Ftorek as overly cerebral. They say he’s an X’s and O’s guy who often loses sight of what’s going on in his players’ minds and hearts. His coaching stints have always ended quickly and abrubtly, and so it is again.

And so the Bruins’ coaching carousel continues to go ’round and ’round. The team has gone through 12 head coaches in the last 17 years — as many as the Celtics and Patiots combined. Coaches and goalies come and go, but the need for consistency remains.

“I know what’s wrong,” said General Manager Mike O’Connell when announcing the move — and making himself Interim Head Coach. “I think I know how to fix it. I’m going to do my damnedest to fix it.”

No one’s questioning that, but the knee-jerk reaction from the Boston media was that this was another case of the B’s hanging out a coach to dry. To be sure, any team that goes through this many coaches needs to spend a bit more time looking in the mirror. Pat Burns, Mike Keenan, and now Robbie Ftorek. Three coaches in four years. Burns and Keenan have had great success elsewhere, but for some reason they weren’t the right guys in Boston.

The Bruins need to find a coach — and a philosophy — that they can live with over the long haul.

That’s been sorely lacking. Having said that, Ftorek was not the right man to lead this team into the playoffs. This might be deja vu all over again, but it was the best way to give this team its best shot this spring.

Lewiston native Tom Caron is studio analyst for Bruins’ telecasts on NESN.


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