The Bruins started off the 2002-03 season like gangbusters and appeared to be a legitimate contender for the Eastern Conference championship. But a funny thing happened on the way to the postseason. Actually, many funny things (funny weird, not funny ha-ha) happened. The Bruins were the ultimate Jekyll and Hyde team. They were terrific early, awful in the middle and largely mediocre the rest of the way. And neither Joe Thornton's career-best 101 points nor Glen Murray's career-best 44 goals were able to keep Bruins' fans from becoming very restless.

2002-03 BY THE NUMBERS

Record: 36-31-11-4, 87 pts. (15th overall, 7th East, 3rd Northeast); Home: 23-11-5-2; Road: 13-20-6-2 Goals for/Avg.: 245/2.99 (T6th overall) Goals against/Avg.: 237/2.89 (T24th overall) Differential: Plus-8 (13th overall) Power play: 18.2 percent (59-325, 8th overall) Penalty kill: 82.7 percent (310-375, T17th overall) 20-goal scorers: Joe Thornton (36), Glen Murray (44), Mike Knuble (30), Brian Rolston (27) 50-point scorers: Thornton (101), Murray (92), Knuble (59), Rolston (59), Jozef Stumpel (51)

The Bruins decision to go with a "fingers-crossed, let's hope this works" goaltending philosophy crashed and burned in the same way the closer-by-committee did for the Red Sox. Neither John Grahame nor Steve Shields was the answer. Eventually, Grahame was dealt to Tampa Bay where he did well.

Forced to deal disgruntled defenseman Kyle McLaren for a netminder, the Bruins acquired Jeff Hackett from Montreal via San Jose in a three-team trade. Hackett's personality proved as brittle as his bones. After he broke his finger on March 15, very little went right for the club right down to the bitter end. Despite saying at the end of the season that he still had plenty to prove in Boston, he elected to sign with Philadelphia on the first day of free agency.

General manager Mike O'Connell felt he had no choice but to fire coach Robbie Ftorek with nine games remaining in the regular season, repeating what the New Jersey Devils had done to Ftorek with eight games left in 1999-2000. Unlike those Devils, who were in first place in the conference at the time and went on to win the Cup under Larry Robinson, the Bruins didn't make many improvements at all under O'Connell and won only one game in their first-round playoff series against the eventual Stanley Cup-champion Devils.

Looking at next season
Stop us if you've heard this before: The Bruins are in need of a No. 1 goaltender. Will they rely on prospect Andrew Raycroft? Will they go after Mike Dunham if Curtis Joseph lands with the Rangers? Will they make a deal with Phoenix for veteran Sean Burke? There are far more questions than answers.

Skimp you want on other players, but if there was one lesson to be learned from last season's rocky revolving door in the cage, you can't skimp on goaltending and expect to get away with it.

The Bruins are just as questionable on defense. They return six regulars from last season -- Sean O'Donnell, Hal Gill, Nick Boynton, Bryan Berard, Dan McGillis and Jonathan Girard. It's the same group that began the season strong but looked disorganized down the stretch. With Don Sweeney now in Dallas -- after Boston opted not to offer the 15-year veteran a new deal -- a spot opens up for prospects such as Shaone Morrisonn and Jeff Jillson, who arrived in the McLaren deal. Also challenging for a place on the roster will be Jarno Kultanen and Zdenek Kutlak.

The club's strength is clearly at the forward position, although there will be some shuffling at center. After two straight sub-par playoff performances, the Bruins opted to send center Jozef Stumpel back to Los Angeles along with a seventh-round draft pick in the June draft for a fourth-rounder in 2003 and second-rounder in 2004.

The Bruins are hoping for another huge year out of Thornton and Murray and are expecting left winger Sergei Samsonov, who as a restricted free agent remains unsigned as of now, to bounce back strong after being limited to just eight regular-season games due to a wrist injury that required bone-graft surgery.

Logic would dictate that right winger Martin Lapointe can't possibly have a repeat of the disastrous season he had in 2002-03, when he was plagued by injuries and lack of productivity. In 59 games, he had just eight goals and 10 assists and was a team-worst minus-19. Last year, Lapointe's four-year, $20 million contract -- signed two summers ago -- seemed far more of a curse than a blessing.

The Bruins do have some youngsters who are hoping to go from cup-of-coffee status to bona fide NHLers. Center Andy Hilbert and left winger Ivan Huml have plenty of talent, but Hilbert needs to develop a mean streak and Huml needs to put on some muscle.

As the Bruins have allowed one high-priced talent after another walk, they've maintained that they don't want to commit to rich, long-term contracts because they don't know what the financial landscape will look like after the current collective bargaining agreement expires in September of 2004. Several other clubs have echoed that sentiment. But what does that mean for those fans paying top dollar for seats to the 2003-04 edition of the Bruins? That remains to be seen.

New coach Mike Sullivan is going to have his hands full, especially if the Bruins stand pat in goal. Can Raycroft be a legitimate No. 1 NHL goalie? Some who have watched him often believe he can. But they also believed Grahame, who won a Calder Cup for the organization while in Providence, was going to be, too. Goaltending is like pitching. If you have it, you'll always have a chance. If you don't, you're going nowhere fast.

The Bruins had no trouble scoring goals last season. Their chief problem was preventing them. So far, it doesn't look like that situation has changed a bit.

Nancy Marrapese-Burrell of the Boston Globe is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.