The high point of the Boston Bruins’ season thus far dawned on the morning of Monday, December 9. After returning from New York City via charter the previous night, following a 4-1 trouncing of the Rangers, the Black & Gold sat proudly atop the National Hockey League standings with a record of 19-4-1-1. This from a team that had improbably won the top seed in the league’s Eastern Conference the prior season, only to get dispatched by its hated rival, the eighth-seeded Montreal Canadiens, in the very first round of the post-season.

Not much had been expected of the 2002-’03 edition of the Bruins, since arguably their three best players — their top scorer, top defenseman, and number-one goaltender — no longer wore the spoked-B’s. Nonetheless, on that Monday morning, Boston led the Northeast Division by 10 points over the Ottawa Senators, and was riding a hot streak during which it had won eight of its last nine games. While their FleetCenter co-residents, the Celtics, were off to an admirable 13-7 start, and their gridiron neighbors to the south were coming off an impressive 27-17 victory over Buffalo to improve to 8-5, it was the Bruins who were undoubtedly providing the feel-good story of the fall sports season.

But the 2002-’03 season has seen our local teams make great sprints out of the box, followed by rapidly diminishing returns. The Red Sox squandered a 40-19 beginning before fading and missing out on the playoffs, the Pats blew a 3-0 start to struggle to 9-7 and finish out of the playoffs, and the Celtics recently lost eight of 10 and are now just four games above .500. Yet no team has fallen so hard, so fast, so dramatically, as the Hub of Hockey’s hometown heroes.

Since that optimistic December day, the Bruins have managed to wipe out all the good they had done, and all the excitement they had created, by stumbling to a ridiculous 3-13-1 mark and falling 13 points behind the Senators in the Northeast. The Bruins are obviously no longer first overall in the NHL, the conference, or even in their division, and are actually in third place behind Toronto, and sixth overall in the conference.

If not for the team’s magnificent early start, this freefall would probably be landing the B’s in the non-playoff netherworld inhabited by the likes of Buffalo, Atlanta, and Nashville. And the bewildering part is, there is no easy explanation for why this team has taken such a disastrous turn in the last six weeks.

Usually, injuries play a role, but Boston’s hot start was accomplished without the services of superstar winger Sergei Samsonov (wrist) and Martin Lapointe. Lapointe has since returned (although he has contributed only a goal and four assists, along with a -15 plus/minus rating in 26 games), but Samsonov had surgery and is gone at least until the playoffs. More recently, the Bruins lost captain Joe Thornton to an elbow infection and left winger Rob Zamuner to a broken foot, but the team’s real problems began to unfold long before those two guys went down.

The offense, which averaged nearly 3.5 goals per game during its stupendous start, has scored a total of 39 goals in its last 17, and if you throw out a couple of wins where it appeared that the Bruins had emerged from their doldrums (5-2 vs. San Jose and 6-2 vs. Toronto), then Boston has tallied just 28 goals in 15 games, which averages out to fewer than two goals per game. Not many victories will come your way with that kind of offensive firepower.

The defense has been similarly lackluster. Included in the losing streak were five games in which the team gave up five goals or more, with the nadir coming in an 8-4 trouncing by a New York Islanders team struggling to attain .500 status. Defenseman Kyle McLaren, whose inexplicable decision to sit out this season has created a significant void at the Bruins’ blue line, is still trade bait, but GM Mike O’Connell has yet to pull the trigger on a deal that could shore up the besieged defensive front. Instead, the team sent struggling goaltender John Grahame to Tampa Bay for a throwaway fourth-round draft pick, leaving 30-year-Steve Shields (9-8, 2.66 GAA) and youngster Andrew Raycroft to hold the fort in net. Perhaps another deal is imminent that will conclude the McLaren saga and bolster the Bruins’ efforts to get a top-flight goalie or replace the mercurial Samsonov, but thus far Bruins management is holding its poker hand tightly against its vest while the house of cards begins to fall.

There have been numerous low points along the way, including a pair of 4-2 losses to the Buffalo Sabres, a team that has filed for bankruptcy, has no stars, and is currently in firm control of the basement in the Northeast Division. In the Bruins’ most recent trip up there, they squandered a 2-0 third-period lead in losing their fifth-straight game — their second five-game losing streak during this dismal stretch.

Boston is an equal-opportunity vanquishee lately, losing to the good teams (Ottawa, New Jersey, Washington) as well as to the bad (Buffalo, Islanders, Carolina), yet no loss was as embarrassing, as brutal, as downright maddening as Wednesday night’s debacle in Sunrise, Florida.

Here was a Bruins team coming off a disheartening 2-1 home loss to mediocre Pittsburgh, but it was visiting a Panthers team that a) had won just four games at home all season, and just 12 overall in 44 games; b) had lost five straight, and had been outscored 25-8 in that span (including a 12-2 loss at Washington); c) were starting a goaltender (Roberto Luongo) who entered the game with an 8-18-4-3 record and who had given up 10 goals over the four periods leading up to it; and d) had as a team allowed 132 goals entering the game, the third-highest total in the league. Here was a Bruins team that presumably was looking for payback against a Florida team that had rallied for two goals in the final minute of play at the FleetCenter on December 21 to escape with a 3-3 tie. Here was a Bruins team that needed a win against anyone, yet lucked out via the schedule-makers on this night by drawing an overmatched and disheartened foe like the pitiful Panthers.

Result? Florida 3, Boston 0. Nothing more needs to be said. Florida 3, Boston 0.

A month ago, coach Robbie Ftorek was being spoken about in terms of Coach of the Year honors. Today, one could almost surmise that his job is in jeopardy. (It wouldn’t be the first time it happened to him; he was dismissed in March of 2000 by New Jersey — after compiling a coaching record of 88-49-19 — despite the Devils’ first-place standing in the Eastern Conference. At the time he was fired, New Jersey had dropped 10 of 16 contests, but the team rebounded under new coach Larry Robinson and ultimately won the franchise’s second Stanley Cup three months later.)

For a Bruins organization that had such high aspirations back in early December, the last thing it could have expected was a freefall like the current stretch, yet management may be reluctant to change coaches for the sixth time in the past eight seasons.

Nonetheless, the system that got the B’s off to 19 wins in their first 25 games is now the system that has seen the team drop 13 of 17 and seven of eight. After Friday night’s game in Atlanta, the Bruins will play eight of their next nine games at home. That situation may very well ignite the team’s fortunes, even though Boston has won only two of eight games on the Fleet sheet of ice since this long struggle began.

Right now, the gallery gods want to know which is the Bruins’ true identity: the team that appeared to be the premier squad in the NHL, or the edition that has stunk up the joint up and down the Eastern Seaboard in the past six weeks.

The 2001-’02 Bruins fell apart. The 2002 Red Sox fell apart. The 2002-’03 Patriots fell apart.

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose?

The Hub’s collection of hockey talent is made up of good guys, but its destiny, and destination are uncertain.

Buckle your seat belts. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.

Sporting Eye will return on Friday, January 24 at BostonPhoenix.com. Christopher Young can be reached at cyoung[a]phx.com