Just like when he took over the Bruins a decade ago, GM Don Sweeney and his team are at a crossroads.

The B’s have not experienced seas this rough since 2015, the last time they suffered a six-game losing streak. This current one is in grave danger of stretching to seven on Saturday when they face the defending Stanley Cup champions in Florida. Call up the NHL standings and they’ll show you the Bruins are in the playoff bracket, but not really, not when you factor in points percentage and games in hand, which all the teams behind them have on the B’s.

The promise of a suffocating, defensively sound team that will win a bunch of 2-1 and 3-2 games has not been kept. They are 29th in goals per game (2.55), 21st in goals against per game (3.16), 31st in power play (12..2%) and 25th in penalty kill (75.9%).

Interim coach Joe Sacco has helped to bring the defensive structure back but, to these eyes, the lack of scoring is leading to momentary abandonment of that structure and bad puck management decisions, which in turn is leading to backbreaking goals against. As of Friday afternoon, the Bruins had a grand total of three regulation wins over teams currently in a playoff position.

After 44 games, it is pretty clear that they cannot go on like this. But the questions are, what kind of moves can/should they make to right the ship? And should those moves be for now or the future?

Actually, the first question is whether Sweeney should be the one making those moves. There were a lot of paying customers at Tuesday’s Edmonton loss chanting “Fire Sweeney!” who made their feelings known. And that 2015 season spelled, in part, the end of the Peter Chiarelli era.

But the feeling here is yes, Sweeney should still be shopping for the groceries.

That’s not to say that he does not own this current team. While Nikita Zadorov can be erratic at times, his six-year deal with a $5 million cap hit is fine. But Sweeney believed he was buying a No. 1 center in Elias Lindholm and, though a useful middle-six player, Lindholm is not The Guy. You need more than diligent back-checking for a 7x$7.75 million contract. Lindholm has just 7-13-20 totals and he has not mitigated the decision to let Jake DeBrusk walk.

But Sweeney’s body of work has been overall pretty good. There are a lot franchises who would trade what they had for the last 10 years of Bruins hockey.

His 2019 team was one win away from a Stanley Cup but lost in seven games to a team it should have beaten. He gave his 2023 team that won 65 games all the tools it needed to win a Cup but that gag job was worse than the infamous 1971 first-round collapse. At least the ‘71 team had one more do-over before the WHA and expansion decimated its roster. The ‘23 team saw the end of the era with Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci retiring.

The job facing Sweeney is much more daunting than the one he had in 2015. Then he still had Bergeron, Krejci and Zdeno Chara. But there are still pieces around which to build.

The list of untouchables, relatively speaking, is short. Though in a rough patch now, Brad Marchand is still a good player. But more than that, he’s been on a team-friendly deal for the last eight years, is a link to the strong culture of the last decade and a half and has been an accountable captain. He should get an extension. David Pastrnak is the best pure goal scorer the B’s have had since Phil Esposito. Charlie McAvoy may not be the next Ray Bourque, but I’m not moving him, either, unless Cale Makar becomes available.

The rest of the roster is open for discussion. Though it doesn’t seem likely that they’d move Jeremy Swayman, or that there’s a deal that would make them better by moving him, he has to at least be on the table by virtue of the fact that he has no trade protection yet.

Of the other UFAs-to-be, Justin Brazeau has earned long and hard consideration for an extension. But Trent Frederic and Morgan Geekie should be in play. Dishing them at the deadline won’t transform the roster, but it should add some more decent draft capital to the coffers.

The situation in Vancouver, with either Elias Petterson or J.T. Miller believed to be available because of their supposed feud, is interesting but I’m not sure I see a match on a deal that would make the team better. First off, I go nowhere near Petterson, not with his $11.6 million cap hit. Miller is a different story. Though the fact that he would be traded for the fourth time is a bit of a red flag, Miller brings the kind of skilled edge necessary to win. But Miller ($8 million for three more years) doesn’t come cheap, either, and with what would have to be going the other way, his acquisition wouldn’t elevate them much.

The best bet is to pick up some draft picks and fill the spots with any combination of Matt Poitras, Fabian Lysell and/or Georgii Merkulov.

It may not be the sexiest step, but it is the most prudent one.

Feud denied

With losing comes tension, but Pastrnak and Marchand vehemently denied a report from WEEI’s Rich Keefe that there was a rift between the two players that was so deep that Pastrnak refused to play on a line with the captain.

Pastrnak told reporters in Florida that when Marchand first told him of the report, he thought the captain was pulling a joke on him.

“I’ve never in my life said I don’t want to play with this guy to the coaching staff or management and I never would,” said Pastrnak. “I love playing with Marchy. I’ve been playing with him for so long.”

An angry Marchand said he felt he had to address that report that was “not based in fact.”

“The fact that this guy has a platform and he’s just making stuff up is embarrassing,” said Marchand. “The fact that he’s going to have a job after this is insane. Pasta and I are best friends.”

Kastelic out

Mark Kastelic, who was wobbled by a crosscheck to the chin from Tampa’s Emil Lilleberg and then hit his head on the ice, did not practice with the team in Florida on Friday. Lilleberg, who was handed a major penalty and game misconduct, did not receive supplemental discipline from the league.