Despite winning their last two games, the Bruins clearly remain in water-treading mode. By the time they play again on Saturday in Ottawa, they could be outside the playoff structure.

The nadir of the season was their six-game losing streak, low-lighted by a lopsided home loss to Edmonton during which Garden fans chanted “Fire Sweeney!”

But at the Black and Gold Gala at the Copley Plaza Hotel on Wednesday night, B’s CEO Charlie Jacobs made it clear he wasn’t on the same wavelength as the fans – at least on that front. Jacobs gave his full support to team president Cam Neely and GM Don Sweeney.

“I feel everyone’s frustration and I hear it, too,” said Jacobs. “But I feel it because, like our fan base, I am also a fan and I support this team. And I believe in our leadership. I know that’s been called into question quite a bit recently. I hope we can build off our last two games that we played (wins over Florida and Tampa). Our team, in my opinion, has yet to play its best game. I feel like we’ve got it in our system, we’ve got it in our room and I hope we can find it. If history is any indication of what we can anticipate, if we look at Don Sweeney’s stewardship and Cam Neely’s stewardship since Don took over in 2015, we made the playoffs eight of 10 years. … I’m not going to measure success by making the Stanley Cup playoffs. Let’s be very clear about that. Our goal is to win the Stanley Cup. But you can’t win the Stanley Cup if you don’t make it to the playoffs and he’s done it for the past eight years and I hope we do it for the ninth. But there’s been some trying moments. To watch this team play and know what it’s capable of and see it perform and then come out the next night and not do it again, it’s been a head-scratcher, for sure.”

Yes, there’s still hope for a playoff berth. But reality says that’s a coin flip right now. Neely is under no illusions. While Jacobs did not want to address a hypothetical of the missing the playoffs, it’s Neely’s job to be clear-eyed about his team’s prospects. The organization has never been of a “blow-it-up” mind and it doesn’t seem like anything like that is in store. But this team does not feel like it’s going to be all-in like it’s been a few times, either.

The direction of the organization heading into the March 7 trade deadline has yet to be determined.

“We’d certainly like to improve, but we’ll see what happens, what teams decide to do heading into the Four Nations (tourney),” said Neely. “After Four Nations is done, it’s a race to the deadline. We’ll see where we’re at. I think right now, we’ve got to look at two paths. One that we’re buying, one that we may be retooling a little bit. We still like we have a playoff team and we certainly don’t want to jeopardize getting out of the playoffs because we made some moves that may be good for the future but not be good for the present.”

And Neely’s appetite for a retool?

“Right now, I don’t really have that appetite. But like I told our GM and our staff … that we do have to prepare for two paths,” said Neely, who does like the bump the team got from the coaching change from Jim Montgomery to Joe Sacco.

“Nothing against Monty, he did a great job while he was here, no question. He’s a fantastic coach. But we just weren’t playing the right way. We weren’t doing the right things. It wasn’t one or two games, it was a really a number of games. Tough to make those changes, tough to make those decisions but we felt it was the best thing at the time for the team.”

Before any kind of move is made, it would help to get a gauge on what impact prospects like Matt Poitras and possibly Fabian Lysell can make.

“It would be beneficial to see where those guys are at, there’s no question. We’ve been really patient with the group up here with the big club. We rely a lot on what the coaching staff says in Providence, what our development staff says,” said Neely.

“Matty is someone we anticipated starting the year with us. It didn’t materialize but he went down and really worked on his game and I think it showed (Tuesday) night. He looked like a different player, more confidence. We like his skill set. With Fabian, we certainly like his skill set but one of the things with him we’ve preached is away from the puck. And when you don’t have the puck, how do you play? Are you outscoring your mistakes is really the question at the end of the day.”

As for the vote of confidence Jacobs extended to him and Sweeney, Neely said he “certainly appreciates that.”

“I look at the body of work the past 10 years. It would be nice if we sprinkled in a Cup in ‘19 and again in ‘23 but that never happened,” said Neely. “We felt like we’ve given our team a chance to win in every year and it just hasn’t materialized. It’s frustrating for us, we know it’s frustrating for our fan base. Our fans deserve championships. They come out and support like none other. We’re aware of the expectations and we try to meet and exceed those every year. Right now, it’s a year we’re not really accustomed to.”

While it’s management’s job to take care of the long-team health of the team, players live in the moment and the day-to-day process of getting better. They don’t want to hear about a retool. Captain Brad Marchand is 36 now and has seen a thing or two, but he still believes things can turn around.

“We’re aware of the situation we’re in. We understand the roads that are in front of us and where they lead. We understand we haven’t performed the way we’ve needed to and there are consequences that come with that,” said Marchand, himself still without a contract extension. “There are very high expectations in this organization. We’re expected to perform and do our job and compete every year for a Cup. And if we’re not going to do that, then changes are going to be made so that the team does compete for a Cup.

“You can’t look ahead. There’s too much that can happen between now and (the deadline). We have to take it day by day and put a good stretch together. You look at some teams in the past that have been in positions similar to ours and they’ve gone to Finals and won Cups. We’re not in terrible spot. Yeah, we’re not in the best spot but it doesn’t mean we can’t accomplish something special this year. The last couple of games we showed we can compete with good teams and we just need to continue to build off that.”