They’re looking for more physicality
It’s nearly playoff time, and if the Bruins are going to tailor themselves a Stanley Cup championship, coach Jim Montgomery realizes it will take a rougher bolt of fabric than the one that turned to tatters in Round 1 last spring against the Panthers.
“Something I reflect upon, last year in the playoffs,” Montgomery mused the other day, “I wasn’t vocal enough about physicality.”
The Bruins pushed out to a 3-1 series lead vs. Florida and either weren’t ready for, or simply couldn’t match, the Panthers’ determined push-back.
The Panthers punched back hard in all three elimination games — not so much with fists, but with nagging and unsettling persistence on pucks and in initiating body contact. The Bruins, fresh from their record-setting 6512-5 regular season, couldn’t summon the truculence and grit necessary to fight for and win 50-50 pucks or create badly-needed Grade-A scoring chances by penetrating and holding inside ice.
In short, the Bruins were soft, a weakness that Panthers exploited like a pickpocket working a Times Square crowd on New Year’s Eve. Instead of breezing into Round 2, the Bruins were blown straight out of the playoffs, rubbed out, 4-3, in Game 7 overtime.
The Bruins again were inconsistent with their physicality in Tuesday night’s 4-1 loss to the Hurricanes at TD Garden, game No. 79 of the season. Like the Panthers of a year earlier, the Hurricanes looked and played hungrier, although there were some encouraging signs of pluck from the Black and Gold.
Two of those positives were the hit totals logged by Andrew Peeke (8) and Jacob Lauko (6). Their 14 combined smacks, along with five more from team captain Brad Marchand, accounted for nearly half of the 40 hits the Bruins landed against a fast, aggressive Hurricanes lineup.
Montgomery’s thinking: more of that. In big scoops, please.
“Especially those guys that have to relish their role,” he said.”That’s what we want from Peeke. That’s what we want from Lauko. We want that from several others [who have that] as a role on our team, to augment that part as well.”
Prime candidates to deal out added hurt would be forwards Morgan Geekie and Trent Frederic, guys who have the frame and legs to make meaningful contact. In back, Peeke and third-pairing partner Parker Wotherspoon have been pleasant contributors on the meaner side of the street of late.
But all volunteers are welcomed to join the hit parade. The pluses to a bolder hitting approach, noted Montgomery, are many.
“What it does for the whole is that it gives the bench energy,” he said. “Because big hits, finishing checks, and being hard to play against gives excitement to the group.”
And then there’s the wear-down factor on the opposition. The team that imposes its will often takes it out of the other.
“They know they’re going to get hit,” added Montgomery. “So now, they go to a confrontational area and they might not get there as quick, they might panic, and that leads to turnovers and that leads to offense and that leads to territorial advantage.
“When we start for real here,” said Montgomery, referring to a week from Saturday, “those things matter over the course of a series. Not only Game 1, but Game 1, Game 2, Game 3, Game 4 . . . it matters of Game 6 and 7. That’s from the wearing down aspect, and from the aspect that you know you’re going to get rung.”
A new cast
Late in the loss Tuesday night, with not enough time to erase the Hurricanes’ threegoal lead, Montgomery rolled out a completely different cast of characters on a power play that began with 2:37 left on the clock.
One combo had Jesper Boqvist’s line (with Jake DeBrusk and Frederic) out there with point men Hampus Lindholm and Charlie McAvoy. Then came a trio composed of James van Riemsdyk, Lauko, and Danton Heinen with Matt Grzelcyk and Wotherspoon. It looked like Montgomery was running a garage sale of misfit toys.
“They did a pretty good job,” said Montgomery.
But not so good, noted the coach, that any of them will take PP time from regulars Marchand and David Pastrnak.
Nonetheless, the power play has been near dormant the last nine games, going 2 for 25 (8 percent) to fall to 13th overall (23.3 percent) in the league rankings entering Wednesday. No surprise, it will be a point of emphasis for the Bruins as they head into their final three games, beginning Saturday night in Pittsburgh.
“We want the power play to get a little more confident,” noted the coach. “A little more threatening, a little more cohesive.”
Later in his media session Wednesday, his last before Friday’s workout in Brighton, Montgomery described the difference between good and bad power plays, which sounded like a primer he might offer to his charges.
“If you watch power plays that aren’t very good,” he said, “they’ve got guys far away from the net. And with a good power play, they’ve got guys going to the net, guys going to the backside of the net, and it’s applying pressure.”
Getting work in
The Bruins, off Thursday, return to Brighton for a workout Friday morning before flying to Pittsburgh for a Saturday night matchup with the Penguins, who remain in the hunt for a wild-card spot in the East . . . Frederic and Coyle are the two guys to score on the advantage over the last nine games . . . McAvoy’s goal against the Hurricanes, his career-high 12th of the season, lifted the defensemen as a group to 30-116—146 for the season, in step with the 2021-22 six packers who delivered 31-119—150 under Bruce Cassidy. This year’s back-end production is a drop from last season’s 39-166—205.