Now or never
Will Bruins rise to the challenge in Game 7?
BEDFORD — Eighty-eight games into their record-setting season, and woefully outplayed for stretches of Games 87 and 88, the Bruins are down to what could be the final shifts of captain Patrice Bergeron’s career Sunday night when they face the Panthers at the Garden in Game 7 of their first-round playoff series.
If anything can cut through the fog that has crept into their heads of late, it should be the prospect of their beloved “Bergy” left to bid adieu in the wake of what would be one of the most spectacular postseason folds in franchise history.
The built-for-a-long-haul Bruins looked, quite inexplicably, fit to be hauled off to the landfill of shattered Stanley Cup dreams in their back-to-back losses Wednesday (4-3) and Friday (7-5). In Game 6 Friday, they were visibly porous on defense, far below average in goal, and their steadfast focus and attention to details — the bedrock pieces of their record 65-win regular season — were skewed like warped images in a funhouse mirror.
“It’s the lack of execution, right?” said coach Jim Montgomery, explaining his rare, fiery display of anger behind the bench amid his club’s Keystone Kops meltdown in the third period. “I guess I’ve been spoiled. I haven’t had a lot of moments like that where guys are, you know, not executing.”
When he finally blew his cork, noted Montgomery, it wasn’t one botched scoring opportunity, a single fat rebound left for grabs or one mindnumbing, unforced turnover. It could have been any of those, some in multiple factors.
Rather, it was the total tonnage of the moment, a series once well in their control (3-1) abruptly destined to return to Causeway Street for a one-game, win-or-crawl-home faceoff against a Panthers team that finished 17 th in the league’s overall standings.
“It was a combination of three goals [allowed] in a row
that were very uncommon,” Montgomery explained while meeting with the media immediately after the team’s charter flight touched down at Hanscom Air Force Base. “Not one player doing it, but different players at different moments. That was the frustration part.”
The Panthers, the Davids here to the 135-point Goliath Bruins, have gained steady traction after falling into the 3-1 series hole only last Sunday in Sunrise.
The Panthers have picked up noticeable leg speed and, with it, growing confidence in execution. Coach Paul Maurice has been able to settle on his four lines — enhanced remarkably by the return of ornery Sam Bennett in Game 2 — while Montgomery has scurried to change line combinations faster than a costume director sends out half-dressed thespians in the middle school play. Oh, Annie, it’s a hard-knock life.
“They are doing a good job,” said defenseman Brandon Carlo, crediting the Panthers’ effort. “I would say the biggest component is they are just buying in. That’s the difference. And that’s something we need to do a little bit more at this point — that’s just honest. There’s no difference with anything they’re doing, or special play that they’re running, or anything like that.
“For us, it’s about buying into our game and going from there.”
Linus Ullmark, the surefire Vezina Trophy winner for his boffo regular season, has started all six games to date (equaling his season high for consecutive starts). He was deservedly the first star in Game 1, stopping 31 of 32 shots in a 3-1 win. But he has not been nearly as sharp since the opener and was cuts below ordinary in Game 6, scorched for six goals on 32 shots, after yielding four on 25 shots in the Game 5 overtime loss.
Many of the questions Montgomery fielded at Hanscom were about goaltending and, once more, whether he would swap Ullmark out for the well-rested Jeremy Swayman, whose last start was in the regular-season finale in Montreal on April 13.
Montgomery chose not to name his goaltender, and he also wouldn’t acknowledge what other roster changes he might consider. After Connor Clifton’s rough ride in Game 6, it’s all but a certainty that he’ll yield his blue-line spot back to Matt Grzelcyk.
No one on Friday was caught in thicker fog than Clifton, who is both the Bruins’ hardest hitter and too often their biggest boo-boo maker. He made an inexplicable pass into the neutral zone, under no pressure, that the Panthers reversed into a two-on-one break-in, finished off by Matthew Tkachuk’s goal for a 2-1 lead 13:52 into the first. Cliffy hockey at its worst.
If the choice in net is Swayman, who played in five of the seven playoff games last spring against the Hurricanes, Montgomery said he has every confidence the 24-year-old Alaskan stopper can rise to the moment.
“When it comes to Jeremy Swayman,” mused Montgomery, “he is the most confident individual that I know. So, he’s kind of like, you know, you give the ball to [Roger] Clemens to go and win Game 7 on the mound, you’re down to the last two minutes and Tom Brady’s got the ball, you like your chances. If it’s Swayman that’s in net, I have the utmost confidence in him.”
Be it Ullmark or Swayman, a reporter noted to Montgomery, the bigger issue made clear in Game 6 was that no goalie would have a reasonable chance of winning if supported again by the same slipshod effort.
“Yes, way to bring it back to team,” said a brightening Montgomery. “Thank you!”
The season on the line, Montgomery used the flight home to preach a little to his charges. He can be blunt with his assessments, though rarely will he call out a player by name. For the most part, he is a hunk of optimism, and he used some of the flight to try to revive team spirit that had to be flatter than the Everglades in the wake of that embarrassing 7-5 clubbing.
“Opportunity,” he said. “That’s the word that comes to my mind. You’re playing a Game 7 at home. We had the regular season we had; that’s over and done with, but it got us this Game 7 to play in front of our great fans. It’s an opportunity to go and seize the moment.”
Now it’s one final twirl with the Panthers. Win and move on to Round 2, starting Tuesday or Thursday at the Garden. Lose and fold the show, possibly with Bergeron’s No. 37 not to be spotted again until the day it’s hoisted to the rafters.
Seize the moment. Carpe Bergy. Greatness deserves a better exit.