As much as the Boston Bruins felt like something of a team of destiny down the stretch, they were ultimately doomed by their ever-thinning blue line and the fact that they ran into a brick wall.

This is a team now in a unique position among eliminated teams: They’re really good, but most of their best players are getting a bit long in the tooth, and they have some personnel decisions that may just be out of their hands.

Bruins general manager Don Sweeney has four real restricted free agent contracts to sign, as well as eight pending unrestricted free agents. For most teams, RFA decisions are pretty easy to make; “here’s what we think the guy’s value is, and that’s what he’ll get in a flat-cap league.”

But their RFAs are two persistent injury cases and two bottom-of-the-roster guys. In the firs