Bruins in search of top game
Effort, physicality lacking recently
ST. PAUL, Minn. — The push has been lacking and therefore the wins have been missing.
As the Bruins raced out of the 2023-24 gates with a roster dramatically different from the one that made history last season, they not only won nine of their first 10 games, but they also won every battle within those contests.
If there was a puck scrum in a corner, a Bruin was emerging with the disk. If an opponent dared enter the slot, he was steered away forcefully. If anyone infringed on the blue space occupied by goalies Linus Ullmark or Jeremy Swayman, they were quickly reminded by a back checker or backliner that kind of behavior was strictly verboten.
Over the last 16 games, however, the Bruins have gotten away from those principles. The fight and physicality have been largely absent. As a result, the club has gone 6-6-4 during that stretch and have been outscored, 53-43.
On Saturday night at Xcel Energy Center, the Bruins took “Minnesota nice” to a new level, consistently allowing the Wild easy entry into the offensive zone and granting free pass after free pass to the areas where greasy goals are earned.
“Well, it’s a problem preventing people from getting there out of the corners, and then we’re not doing a good enough job of preventing people getting in front of our goaltenders,” Bruins coach Jim Montgomery said. “They’re getting a lot of low slot line [opportunities], which are highdanger chances that we usually prevent — and we’re not preventing enough of them right now.”
What’s most troubling about the recent slide is that the squad as a whole has not matched the intensity of the guys in the other uniforms.
Montgomery is in a continuous search to shake his charges out of their doldrums. He mixes lines from game to game, and shift to shift, in hopes of finding that spark.
“It’s about where we think we are in the standard that we hold ourselves to, as far as when it comes to compete and as far as when it comes to habits and details,” he said. “We feel that the consistency in both of those areas has been waning probably for about 14 games. We only have one win in regulation in our last eight games.”
Consistency is something every coach in every sport craves. The Bruins were all over the Wild for the first 15 minutes of the first period and the final five of the third. In between they were lackadaisical, which led to penalties, a momentum shift, and a fourth straight loss, and sixth in their last eight contests.
“So in pockets we play well, and in pockets it seems like we’re not physical when we need to be,” Montgomery said. “We’re not executing with the puck when we need to be. So we understand where we are, and we need to dig ourselves [out of ] it.
“You wear the Spoked-B, you’ve got to have pride that you wear the Spoked-B, and you’ve got to maintain a degree of excellence that we expect from each other and effort,” Montgomery added. “That’s what I’m talking about, effort. The execution, sometimes that can come and go, but the effort should always be there.”
And it’s not always just a physical thing. Sometimes a poor game, or even a poor shift, can get in a player’s head, regardless of position or experience. Montgomery wants his skaters to have short memories.
“We just need a more considerate effort. People have got to stay in a moment,” he said. “They can’t worry about their previous shift or worry about what’s happening in five minutes. They got to focus, reset, and go out there for that next shift. And as a staff, we got to do a better job here.”
It’s not a doomsday scenario as the Bruins still entered the NHL’s Christmas break leading the Atlantic Division with 44 points, trailing only the Rangers (47) in the Eastern Conference. The Canucks (49) and Golden Knights (47) are the only Western Conference squads with more points.
Rick Bowness, whose Jets overwhelmed the Bruins on Friday night, pointed out that his former employer has too much going for them for the downward spiral to go on too long.
“They’ve maintained a hardworking team; they’ve always taken great pride in it,” Bowness said. “I worked in the organization for a couple of years, and that was stressed. And, as I always say, great leadership. You go back to Big Z [Zdeno Chara] when he went in there and it was carried on by Patrice [Bergeron] and now Marchy [Brad Marchand] is doing it.
“So they have all those ingredients, and they’re well coached. They come to play, and they get great goaltending every night — and you don’t win in this league without it. So, they’ve got all the good ingredients.”