Bruins are running out of time to fix their game, and they know it
The Bruins have 15 games to go before the playoffs, including their stocking stuffer Thursday night in Montreal against Les Miserable Canadiens. What’s left of the Black and Gold’s schedule at this point is far more about playoff readiness, getting their game fit and tight, than it is the nightly pursuit of 2 points.
That’s the good news, because on Monday night — and here’s the bad news — the Bruins looked far more prepared for a dunk tank than a championship run.
They came out sleepy-eyed, heavylegged, and mostly out of synch for the 7:08 start vs. St. Louis at the Garden, ultimately stumbling their way to a 5-1 loss. It was a clunker, nothing remotely resembling their previous four outings (3-0-1) in which they never for a second allowed the Maple Leafs (twice), Oilers, or Penguins to play with a lead.
All of which means . . . what, exactly? We won’t begin to find out the answer until the Bruins are, oh, 2-3 games into Round 1 of the playoffs. We know for certain that if they have more nights like Monday, it will be a very short stay in the Stanley Cup steeplechase. If they roll out the mojo they showed in the previous four games, we could be in for some hot times again here in the Hub of Hockey.
In that context, the main concern with Monday’s stinker is its place in the schedule, the when of it more than the what.
This wasn’t a Monday night in, say, November or December with the ho-hum Blues in town and the Bruins still noodling around to figure out what kind of team they’ll be in 2023-24. This was March 11 and Game No. 67, with the Bruins’ forward trios and defense pairings all but crystallized, and their attention fixed on what it will take to ring up 16 wins across four intense playoff rounds.
“What we want to accomplish is that we are getting ready for the playoffs,” coach Jim Montgomery said, the acrid
smell of the St. Louis stinker still heavy on Causeway Street. “We want our process to be really good. We want to win the odd-man rushes.”
With a slight pause, he added, “We didn’t win the odd-man rushes.”
Net-front battles were next on the coach’s checklist.
“We want to win the net-front battles,” mused Montgomery. “I’m not sure . . . right now.”
The Bruins finished the night with a 3522 shot advantage, misfiring on at least three or four primo chances that might have made for a different outcome. The Blues connected on four of the 21 they landed on Jeremy Swayman, and another for their empty-netter with 8:33 to play.
“And we want our game management to really improve,” continued Montgomery. “And for the most part lately, our game management has been good. I am not sure our game management was poor tonight. It wasn’t good enough to win a hockey game.”
It was rare to see the net empty with so much time still on the clock. Per the NHL stats department, the Bruins only once before allowed an empty-netter with nearly that much time left — April 9, 2016, when the Senators connected with 8:27 to go.
The Bruins entered the third period trailing, 4-0. Leaguewide this season, in the 82 games in which a team was ahead by four goals or more at the 40:00 break, the club holding the advantage finished 81-0-1.
Which is to say, yes, absolutely, the Bruins entered the third with a chance somewhere between zero and next to zero.
“Just trying to push the issue, trying to get a goal,” said Montgomery, explaining the early hook on Swayman and noting that his club showed little carry-through after David Pastrnak’s goal cut it to 4-1. “So you are just trying to get back in the game. Whether we lose 5-1 or we lose 4-3 . . . doesn’t matter to me. It’s a loss.”
As the night got away from them, the Bruins were reluctant to dial up any nastiness. None of the 18 skaters pushed back with a face-wash, an artful butt-end, or so much raised a hand to object. We’ll spare you the old-timer’s view of a league gone by and just say, in that old March adage, they responded more like lambs at the end of the month than lions at the start.
On Friday, general manager Don Sweeney swung a minor deal to bring the oft-ornery Pat Maroon here. It remains to be seen how soon/if Maroon can enter the lineup. He is recovering from back surgery.
Had Maroon been in uniform Monday night, Montgomery could have tapped him on the shoulder, winked his way, and the Big Rig could have tried to clear the fog with a poke here or a jab there. The Bruins too often are too smooth around the edges. Maroon was added in hope he’ll apply sandpaper to the opposition.
”Potentially,” said Montgomery, asked if the call to Maroon would have been a tactic he employed to get his team going. “The good thing about having someone like Patrick Maroon, you don’t have to give him a tap. He knows.”
Now, 67 games in the books, the Bruins pretty much know what they have, how to use it, and what wins for them. The trouble is, they have yet to figure out how to rid their game of nights like Monday.
The time to get it right is getting short. “If your process isn’t good, and your game management isn’t good,” Montgomery said, “you’re not going to win. That is what we are trying to get at.”