There’s one guaranteed certainty in sports: if you want to succeed, you need speed. And a little quickness wouldn’t hurt either.

That’s why it seemed so bizarre to me, last week, to hear Bruins executives Don Sweeney and Cam Neely bemoan the team’s lack of speed, and vow to get faster as a team.

I apologize in advance for being so blunt, but, well DUH! No kidding, guys. Then again, the Bruins have always been behind the curve when it came to keeping up with trends in the National Hockey League. They cannot seem to be where they need to be. They either cannot hold their own in front of the net and are out of position for the so-called dirty goals; or they’re consistently beaten to the puck in the open ice.

After six games of watching Buffalo skate rings around Boston, though, it was apparent how important speed is, and how lacking in it the Bruins were. The Sabres gobbled up loose pucks. They used their speed to accommodate mistakes that often cost other teams, such as skaters being trapped up-ice. I saw a lot of instances, in which they recovered to spoil odd-man rushes for the Bruins.

Meanwhile, even in a series with no shortage of wide-open, action-packed hockey, the Bruins were checked more often than not. Forechecking, backchecking — whatever defensive maneuvering you want to talk about — the Sabres were better. They might not have had anyone on their team to match up with the likes of David Pastrnak (if they had, the series may have been over in four games), but their attention to the little things, and their skill at doing them, made the difference in the series. And much of that was due to superior speed.

In the regular season, that wasn’t so obvious because there were plenty of teams in the same boat, so that the Bruins amassed more points (100) than anyone thought they would. But in the playoffs, more teams have the whole package. And the Bruins were far from complete.

This shouldn’t be a revelation to anyone. Speed and quickness go hand-in-hand, and any team that takes it seriously will generally finish ahead of the curve. In baseball, running down fly balls makes for great highlight reels on Quick Pitch or ESPN. But it’s just as important to take the extra base or steal a base when the occasion calls for it. Speed.

Even though he’s the manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, Dave Roberts will never have to buy his dinner in Boston.

Quickness comes to play more in basketball and football, but quickness is simply the yang to speed’s yin. There are so many instances, in basketball, in which you need quickness: boxing out, creating your own shots, and coming off a pick-and-roll, for starters. And defense is practically all speed and quickness.

A wide receiver is nothing in football if he or she cannot get separation from a defender. That isn’t as easy as it sounds. Safeties and cornerbacks are quick, too, so fakes by receivers have to be authentic enough to pull in a defensive back so you can reverse course without them following you.

In fact, take any sport, regardless of how boring you think it is to watch, and speed makes it more interesting. One of the most riveting sporting events I ever saw on TV was the last World Cup final between Argentina and France. Why? Because the skill of the players, combined with their speed, left me in awe. I hate to say it, but the U.S. still has a long way to go in men’s soccer.

In another life, I coached a Little League All-Star team. When it came time to pick the roster, most people in the room were trying to find kids who could hit as extra players. Phooey on that. I lobbied for kids with speed. This was before the edict that ruled that every kid had to play at least three innings and hit once. That’s why I wanted fast kids who could pinch run.

I got my way, which didn’t happen too often, and my last three kids were all kids who could leave vapor trails on the bases. Not to toot my own horn, but we won one game when my pinch-runner, a kid named Eric Despres, scored on Armando Feliciano’s walk-off double.

I was 42 years old then. I’m almost 73 now. And I remember everything about that play like it was yesterday.

The years speed by, don’t they?