BOSTON — So they’ve finally had a rest. The Bruins reported to practice Monday afternoon after three full days off skates, and don’t play a game for the fourth straight day – the longest break since the season started on Oct. 13.

Will that down time, plus other lengthy breaks in February, be enough to help them avoid taking the longest rest of all – the offseason – immediately after their final regular-season game on April 8?

Not impossible, but doubtful.

The Bruins were in a decent state of mind at the All-Star break after comeback wins in their last two games – at TD Garden, of all places. Those four points pushed them back into the third and final Atlantic Division playoff slot, two points behind the Senators and one ahead of the Maple Leafs.

This, as many know, is a bit of a mirage. Because the Senators and Leafs have already had their one-week bye, and faced a slightly less compacted schedule than the Bruins beforehand, they’ve both played five fewer games than the Bruins. It hardly seems feasible that both teams won’t be ahead of the Bruins (leads to be determined), while the Bruins spend a good portion of February not playing.

That makes a wild-card berth a more likely path to the playoffs, and the Bruins aren’t in such bad shape there. The Flyers owned the second of two berths at the break with the same 56 points as the Bruins, with a cluster of teams (discounting the Leafs, whom it’s assumed will jump to third in the Atlantic at some point) 4-6 points behind. Games in hand are a factor, but not like the situation the Bruins face within their division.

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OK, so those are some of the key numbers. Let’s revisit one of them – the Bruins’ 56-point total through 52 games. That’s six points fewer than the 62 they’d earned through 52 games last season, seven less than the 63 in 2014-15 – and, as we know, the Bruins were bumped out of a berth on the season’s final weekend both years.

Nobody knows for sure how many points it will take to qualify this season, but with 93 (last year) and 96 (’14-15) falling short in the last two years, it’s logical to assume a team must at least approach that level to stay in the conversation. So the Bruins, with 60 points still on the table, can pretty much bet on having to collect between 37 and 40 points down the stretch to have a shot.

That’s a winning percentage between .616 and .667 over the final 30 games. Their winning percentage through 52 games is .538, which works out to about 88 points.

Which is not enough.

Mathematically, it’s possible. The problem is that it’s hard to see the Bruins, despite beating the Red Wings and Penguins before the break, as a team trending upward.

They’re more like a team treading water.

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As the Senators proved with their 23-4-4 finish two years ago, teams can get hot enough to qualify. The Bruins, however, haven’t had what amounts to a hot streak in months: Since a 7-2-0 run between Oct. 29 and Nov. 13, followed by a 4-0-2 streak from Nov. 27 to Dec. 7, they’ve had consecutive wins only twice.

That same back-and-forth, up-and-down team is what the Bruins take into the stretch, and for all the breaks ahead in the next month, the schedule still doesn’t help. Three chances to make up ground on the Senators lie ahead – but not until March, when there’s every chance it could be too late.

The Bruins come out of their Feb. 13-17 bye with a three-game trip to California, where an 0-3-0 experience last season significantly damaged their playoff run.

And while six of their 11 games between Tuesday night and the March 1 trade deadline are on the road, that’s not necessarily the positive news it was earlier in the season: The Bruins are 3-4-2 in their last nine away from the Garden.

The grind, and the pressure, begin immediately. Back-to-back road games against the Lightning (Tuesday), which is in worse straits, playoffs-wise, than the Bruins, and the Capitals (Wednesday), who went 13-1-2 before the break, are followed by Saturday’s critical home date against the Leafs, who are 2-0-0 against the Bruins this season.

So we’re already there. If this week doesn’t go well, talk of a playoff push could justifiably be replaced by talk of a tear-down.


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