Marchand: There’s no reason to panic
Showdown with Toronto looms
A quick look at the s tandings suggest s Wednesday’s showdown between the Bruins and Maple Leafs at Scotiabank Arena is a lot more important to the Leafs than it is to the B’s. Eleven points back of the B’s, the Leafs could very well be making their last- ditch effort to create a race out of the Atlantic Division.
The B’s, however, are smarting. They’ve lost three straight, with their 4-1 loss in Carolina on Sunday being one of their worst showings of the season.
But Brad Marchand was giving off distinct no-panic vibes when he met with reporters after the B’s practice at Warrior Ice Arena on Tuesday. The B’s knew this bump would eventually arrive. Now they just have to work their way out of it. And the three losses, he argued, weren’t all bad.
“Listen, we easily could have won that game in Florida. The game we lost to Tampa, a lucky goal. Yeah, we didn’t have a good game in Carolina. But if you break it down, we’re not concerned,” said Marchand. “No one’s too concerned about losing three in a row. Yeah, it’s not ideal. But if you look at the way we lost, yeah, we gave up a bad one there in Florida (the tying goal with 1.4 seconds remaining in regulation), they got a lucky one in Tampa. It’s going to happen. We’re playing really good teams. We’re getting the best from every team that we play. And we know that. So we just have to dial it back a little bit. We’ll be all right.”
The torrid first few months may have set up unreasonable expectations for what this team could accomplish.
“You’re not going to coast through this league, regardless. We’re not that good of a team. Yeah, we’re good, but we’re not going to run through this league and we never thought that for a second,” said Marchand. “Even if you look at the games we won early on, it was because we play the right way, we play hard and we just find a way to win. It’s not like we’re dominating every game. There’s too much parity in the league. Even teams that are out of the playoffs right now, they could easily put up six, seven goals a night. It’s a very, very competitive league and the teams that come out on top at the end of the day are teams that find ways to win, find ways to stick with it and that’s where we’ve been really good and it’s allowed us to succeed. At the end of the day, it really doesn’t matter what you do in the regular season anyway. We could win every game and if we don’t win in the playoffs, it doesn’t mean anything.”
Starting with the third period in Tampa, it appeared that some fatigue was setting in with the B’s, who now sit at a still lofty 38-7- 5.That fatigue could very well be mental, stemming from the fact that they’ve been the league’s measuring stick for a couple of months now.
“It makes the games harder, for sure. You’re competing at the highest levels every night,” said Marchand. “But we have our own measuring sticks. Teams look at us, but we look at other teams, too. There are easily seven or eight teams that are legit contenders. And really any team could come out of the woodwork at this point. You look at what St. Louis did in ’ 19. It really doesn’t matter how teams view us. We take care of our game and how we view ourselves and how we want to build for the playoffs. It does make every game harder because they know they need to be prepared when they play us. But that’s only going to make s better down the road, too.”
Power outage
One way to snap out of this mini- slump would be to get the power play going again. Their 0-for12 showing in the three losses dropped them down to sixth in the league (25.8%), and the goose egg was not as concerning as how disjointed the process looked. On many occasions, the B’s could never even gain the zone to set up.
What’s the root of that problem?
“I think attacking the blue line with speed and guys coming together. The timing of it,” said coach Jim Montgomery. “We had guys ahead of one another, we weren’t attacking the F1 of the penalty kill well enough, which is making it easier for them to stand at the blue line. Then there has to be a willingness to not always carry it across but go and get your own chipins.”
There has also been some changing personnel. Taylor Hall took the injured Jake Debrusk’s spot as the net- front player and at first they continued to click at a good rate. But with the top unit flagging, Hall was replaced by David Krejci in Carolina, with Marchand taking the net- front. That was the set-up in Tuesday’s practice
“Once you mix up the units and there are different guys on it, there’s different chemistry. That’s part of it a little bit, just finding out where certain guys fit best and you just have to work on it,” said Marchand. “We didn’t have really have any reps together before we jumped on the line together, so it was just about getting some reps.”
Lettieri injured
Tough break for Vinni Lettieri. Providence’s leading scorer was called up to the B’s for the first time this year but suffered a lower body injury in practice and was on crutches afterward. The severity of the injury was not known, but he could not travel with the team to Toronto.
Jakub Lauko, also brought up from Providence, will be fourth line right wing with center Trent Frederic and left wing A. J. Greer. David Pastrnak was reunited with Marchand and Patrice Bergeron, left wing Hall was on the second line with Krejci and Pavel Zacha while Charlie Coyle center Nick Foligno and Craig Smith.
Debrusk progressing
Debrusk, out since breaking his fibula in the Winter Classic, skated before and during B’s practice in a non- contact jersey. Montgomery said that he’d be “shocked” if the winger wasn’t ready to play in their first game back af ter the break against Washington on Feb. 11. …
The Leafs will be without star Auston Matthews, but they’ve fared pretty well without Matthews in the lineup over the years, going 32-17-2 in his absence.