Like the 2002 Red Sox and Patriots before them, the 2002-’03 Boston Bruins are fading from view so quickly and so improbably that they’re in danger of missing out on the playoffs altogether after compiling a most spectacular start. Like the Sox and Pats, who bolted out of the season’s gate like gangbusters and stirred up talk of titles and rings, the Bruins also exploded out of the blocks like a team possessed, chugging to the top of the NHL’s power rankings by winning 19 of their first 25 games. Fans of the Black and Gold didn’t seem to remember that last year’s Red Sox were once 40-19 (ultimately finishing 93-69), that the Patriots were an impressive 3-0 as the defending champs (before going just 6-7 the rest of the way), and that fast starts around here are as promising for the future as a brawl-free Mike Tyson press conference. The Red Sox and Patriots didn’t even make their playoffs after their impressive beginnings, and it’s rapidly beginning to appear that the Bruins won’t either, a concept that would have been perceived as utterly preposterous in early December. Nonetheless, since Pearl Harbor Day, Boston’s hockey heroes have gone 9-21-7-2. They are winless in their last eight contests, and have not won a game in regulation since February 6, a skein of 11 outings.

It was not that long ago that a Bruins appearance in the playoffs was practically a birthright. Boston qualified for every post-season from the year that Bobby Orr entered his second pro season back in 1967 until the 1996-’97 season, collecting a pair of Stanley Cups (1970 and 1972) along with five other Final appearances. That streak of consistency established a professional sports record for most consecutive years for a franchise to reach the playoffs — a mark that still stands today. Yet after 1997, when the team finished 26-47-9 and broke the string, the Bruins would qualify for the post-season just three times over the next six seasons, and win just one playoff series in the process (a seven-game first-round match-up against Carolina in 1999).

After last season’s regular-season conference title, it seemed the B’s were back on the right track, but the team’s opening-round loss to the Canadiens cancelled out all the goodwill that the rejuvenated team had collected during its regular-season run. After opening camp last September without three key performers from last year’s team, the franchise’s fans had fairly low expectations, which is why the 19-4-1-1 start was so startling. It all began to fall apart in early December, though, and the Bruins won just three of their next 17 before apparently righting the ship in mid-January by going 5-1-1-1. Then came the nationally televised 5-2 home loss to Pittsburgh, followed by a seven-game road trip that saw the team go winless in regulation, and included gruesome losses in Montreal (3-1), Tampa (5-2), and Nashville (5-1). While the Bruins’ FleetCenter co-residents, the Celtics, were waging a stalwart 4-2 road trip out West, the B’s limped home with a 1-4-2 log. Hope sprang anew when Boston rallied from a two-goal deficit last Tuesday to tie the mighty Dallas Stars before a sellout crowd on Causeway Street, but on Thursday the team submitted another dreadful regionally-broadcast performance in New York, allowing two shorthanded goals and losing 4-1 to the 26-31 Rangers, and then lost at home to Philadelphia over the weekend, 3-2 in OT.

In the Northeast Division, the Bruins have now fallen a mind-boggling 21 points behind Ottawa, a team the B’s led by 10 points just two and a half months ago. Overall, they have plummeted to eighth in the conference, with the hard-charging Canadiens and Rangers each within four points of overcoming Boston for that coveted final playoff berth.

There are 18 games left in the regular season, and the month of March will find the team facing a slate of foes of which at least 12 are still in the playoff hunt (and seven are teams that could be termed members of the NHL’s elite). Of the six remaining tilts against squads seemingly out of the playoff mix, five are road games, including yet another West Coast trip to Phoenix, San Jose, and LA.

Nobody can criticize the overall offensive efforts of the team’s top two lines, which include captain Joe Thornton (a career-high 32 goals and 79 points through 58 games), Mike Knuble (a career-best 17 goals), Glen Murray (32 goals), Brian Rolston (25 goals), and PJ Axelsson (a career-best 11 goals), but the team on a regular basis still struggles to score. On the recent road trip, the Bruins were held to two goals or fewer in five of the seven games, and overall the team has won a game in which it scored four goals or more just four times in its last 22 outings. Martin Lapointe has been a supreme disappointment: as the $5.5 million winger, who never scored fewer than 15 goals in his prior six seasons, he has tallied only twice in 40 games in this injury-plagued campaign, and even worse, has been –21 in the plus/minus ratings this season. Similarly, Marty McInnis has only six goals in nearly 60 games while earning a –10 in the plus/minus ratings.

The biggest deficiencies have been on defense and in consistent, spirited play. Goaltender Jeff Hackett was acquired a month ago from Montreal to firm up the team’s collective lackluster performance in goal, but after giving up just one goal over his first two games, the 34-year-old soon-to-be free agent has given up 33 goals in his last 10 games while going 2-7 in the process. Hackett’s mate in goal, Steve Shields, is only 10-10, but between them they haven’t had too much help from the blueliners.

Granted, the Ray Bourques of the world come along once in a lifetime, but the graybeard averaged at least 10 goals a season throughout his career, even as he approached age 40. On the current squad, only newly acquired defenseman Bryan Berard has as many as nine goals, while fellow backskaters Nick Boynton (five goals), Hal Gill (four), Jonathan Girard (four), Don Sweeney (two), Sean Brown (one), PJ Stock (one), and Sean O’Donnell (a big fat zero) have made minimal offensive contributions from the blue line.

The Bruins organization has had eight coaches over the past 14 seasons. It has also had three different guys behind the bench over the course of the past two and a half seasons, which is more than any other current NHL franchise. Rumors are now circulating that another change may soon be in the offing, since the current season seems to be slipping away. Robbie Ftorek is only in his second year at the helm, but he’s been replaced under similar circumstances at previous NHL stops, and while the coach seems to be liked by his players, GM Mike O’Connell cannot help but be disappointed at the team’s pattern of passionless play.

Boston fans of late have become accustomed to their teams fading from view after giving them reason to believe, and it’s difficult to imagine the Bruins making a sustained run that would make anyone believe they’re more than a first-round-and-out playoff team — if that. Injuries have certainly played a part (e.g., winger Sergei Samsonov), as has a lack of depth, but the team definitely has a nucleus of talent, and that’s what makes this recent stretch of ineptitude so maddening.

Pat Burns, Mike Keenan, and Ftorek have all had their chances to make things right in the eyes of die-hard Bruins fans, but the team’s up-and-down history in recent years makes it difficult to pinpoint the answer to the franchise’s woes of late. When Burns was fired in the fall of 2000, O’Connell considered hiring himself as the team’s coach before settling on Keenan. It would not be surprising to see the GM take the reins on an interim basis if the team continues its free fall in March.

There are no easy answers, and any new coach probably couldn’t rescue the team in time for any kind of post-season advancement. With an abundance of talent on the offensive end and a dearth of game-breakers on the defensive side, adjustments will have to be made this off-season. It is encouraging that the Bruins’ top minor-league affiliate in Providence is 63-39-14, good for second place in its conference, and has a league-best 24-3-4 home mark.

Yet Boston’s impatient fans are getting tired of the big tease. They would much prefer to see their squads get off to a mediocre start and finish with a flourish, rather than get visions of parades and sugarplums dancing in their heads in the early months of the season, only to be squashed near the finish line.

Eighteen games to go, against the iron of the NHL.

It’s time for the Bruins to play with the heart, pride, and passion necessary to avoid adding yet another name to this nation’s steadily growing unemployment statistics.

If not, play ball!

Sporting Eye runs Mondays and Fridays at BostonPhoenix.com. Christopher Young can be reached at cyoung[a]phx.com