An ear-splitting message from Jim Montgomery was waiting for the Boston Bruins at Monday’s practice.
The coach was pissed off, and he showed it by yelling at the players and making them skate sprints. He gave several reasons for this afterward — two straight losses at the end of tight games, the fact that he thought the Bruins didn’t come prepared for practice, and his opinion that they are far from ready for the playoffs.
At one point, Montgomery screamed “Wake the f— up!” to his players.
The Bruins have Stanley Cup aspirations, or at the very least, going far in the playoffs. So, Montgomery served up some clarity by stopping the players in their tracks and reminding them what’s at stake. Losses from late-game lapses (3-2 to the New York Rangers on Thursday and 3-2 to the Philadelphia Flyers on Saturday) are not a good sign, and Boston must get ready for the high-pressure moments expected to occur often in the postseason. With 10 games to go in the regular season, the timing was just right for Montgomery to let his team know definitively that nothing is going to be easy from here on out.
If the players need another reminder, it might be good for them to watch Games 5, 6 and 7 of their first-round 2023 Playoff series collapse against the Florida Panthers last season after a record-breaking 65 regular-season victories and a 3-1 series advantage. In other words, now is GO TIME, and everything the Bruins do on a daily basis should be geared toward finding the edge, winning the close ones, and not taking practices for granted.
In the players’ defense, it wasn’t like they showed no effort against the Rangers and Flyers. They did, for the most part. This is more about going all-in to that gritty, hard-nosed style and mindset because the intensity of games picks up exponentially from here.
Related: Bruins Experimenting With Third Defense Pairing as Playoffs Loom
In more of a cooled-down state after practice, Montgomery offered some humor concerning his earlier outburst and shouldered some of the blame.
“Sometimes I like to stretch my vocal cords, you know,” he said. “Grab you guys’ (the media) attention, seeing if they’re reaching you guys up there (in the stands). … In all seriousness, I hated the way we finished the game in Philly. It was a good hockey game. It was playoff intensity, with physicality to it. I don’t think I’ve done a good enough job of teaching the details and game management that we need.”
Sure enough, the loss to the Flyers occurred because a no-look drop pass in the offensive zone by Danton Heinen landed on the stick of Philadelphia’s Tyson Foerster, who, after a give-and-go on a 3-on-2 with Ryan Poehling, scored the winning goal with 1:29 remaining. That’s a great example of the game management problem the coach talked about. It’s a matter of not giving up puck possession at such a crucial time, and to do that, they’ve got to know where their teammates are when they are passing to them.
Specifically, this was Montgomery’s call to battle Monday: “Do we lose our patience and start giving up odd-man rushes, or do we continue to fight and have second and third efforts and play the right way and get a greasy goal to win a hockey game? That’s what I’m looking for (in upcoming road games against Florida on Tuesday, the Tampa Bay Lightning on Thursday, and the Washington Capitals on Saturday).
In other words, he wants to see the Bruins’ bruising and grinding, never-give-up hockey (a franchise legacy) and smart decision-making shine through when the games are on the line.
“Who are the guys that are going to manage a game and protect the puck? Who’s going to win battles? Who’s going to be first on pucks?” added Montgomery.
New Combos on Top 2 Lines Tested Against Philadelphia
Toward the end of the Flyers game, Montgomery made some interesting changes with the top two lines. Jake DeBrusk dropped down from the first line to join David Pastrnak and Pavel Zacha on the second. That setup has a lot of oomph on paper, for sure.
Meanwhile, Justin Brazeau, who has been brilliant since the call-up from the Providence Bruins, played on the first line with Brad Marchand and Charlie Coyle, and he wound up scoring his fifth goal in 15 games with the big club on passes from Coyle and defenseman Mason Lohrei.
Although Heinen made the turnover that led to the Flyers’ winning goal, a bit earlier, he scored with a beautiful wrister to give the Bruins a temporary 2-2 deadlock with 3:48 to go.
Today’s Game Against the Panthers Is for First Place
The winner of today’s Bruins (41-16-15, 97 points) at Panthers (46-20-5, 97) game will take over sole possession of first place in the Atlantic Division. A handful of other teams are in the best-league-record sweepstakes — the Vancouver Canucks (45-18-8, 98), New York Rangers (47-20-4, 98), Colorado Avalanche (46-20-5, 97), and Dallas Stars (44-19-9, 97).