The Bruins have another hockey game on Saturday night in Detroit and that begs two questions.

With nine games to go, can they win another game this season? Secondly, do you even want them to win another game?

While B’s will face a Red Wings team – three points behind the eighth-place Montreal Canadiens — that is still alive in the race for the final Eastern conference playoff spot, a “chase” that is looking like a moonwalk contest, there should be no such misgivings about the B’s.

Yes, technically they are still alive. Going into Friday’s games, they were six points out of the playoff bracket while some teams, like the Habs, have two games in hand. But on top of the currently long odds of them making the playoffs from a pure standings perspective is the talent level in the current lineup and how it has performed on this disastrous road trip.

In the four losses, the B’s have been outscored 21-6 and outshot 113-80. The only game they had a chance to win was against the San Jose Sharks, the worst team in the league that came up with the winning goal late in the game. Management may have not meant for the final days of this season to be quite so hideous. But after the roster-decimating trade deadline, injuries and other circumstances have led to some serious ugliness.

So practically speaking, if you’re a forward-thinking fan anyway, what you should hope for is for the B’s to keep extending their losing streak, which now stands at seven games. Before Friday’s games, the B’s sat in eighth place from the bottom, which would give them a 6% chance of winning the lottery for the No. 1 overall pick. But they could very well creep down further in the standings. While the B’s sit with 69 points (as do the Penguins, on whom the B’s have a game in hand) , the Kraken are at 68 points, the Flyers are at 67 and even the surging Sabres are only three points behind the B’s at 66.

So for their long-term goals, losing would be a good thing.

But players and coaches, competitors that they are, have much different perspectives. They certainly don’t want to set any records for futility. The club’s longest losing streak is a very reachable 11 set in 2024-25, the franchise’s first year of existence. Pride does still matter.

The B’s held a practice on Friday in the practice facility within Little Caesars Arena.

“It shouldn’t be too difficult (to get up for the game), especially since we really need a win here to finish up the road trip to feel better about ourselves as a group,” Joe Sacco told reporters in Detroit. “It’s a game that I think right now for our mindset, it’s important that we play a solid game and, like I said, feel better about ourselves coming home from a road trip where some of the games haven’t gone our way.”

The one bit of good news that the B’s got was the return of Nikita Zadorov, who had to miss the last game in Anaheim when he had to return home to tend to a family matter. While the B’s are a shocking minus-50 in goal differential, the 6-foot-6, 250-pound Zadorov has managed a plus-14. His presence was surely missed in the embarrassing 6-2 loss in Anaheim in which they B’s were thoroughly outplayed from start to finish.

“It’s good to have Z back and back with the group,” said Sacco. “He skated (Friday) and it was good for him to get a practice in before the game. Obviously, we need him back in there.”

What the B’s will get from the Wings remains to be seen. They should be a desperate team. Detroit, once the gold standard in the NHL two decades ago, is in danger of missing the playoffs for the ninth consecutive year. But with a playoff berth there for the taking, they are just 3-7 in their last 10 games.

Could the chance of being the spoilers for Detroit provide an impetus for the B’s to find some semblance of their game? Who knows. But at this point, the B’s could use any kind of motivation they can find.