Jim Montgomery hasn’t strayed away from the layered, sturdy zone defense that the Bruins first installed under Claude Julien’s watch — and later refined during Bruce Cassidy’s tenure behind the bench.
But even if Boston’s new head coach isn’t looking to uproot what has been one of the foundations of this team’s success for years, that doesn’t mean he’s not willing to sacrifice a bit more of that structure when the opportunity arises.
Look no further than Boston’s 5-2 win over the Capitals in their season opener last week — namely, a sequence in which the B’s coughed up an odd-man rush (and eventually, a goal) to Conor Sheary after a Grade-A chance from David Pastrnak was blocked down the other end of the ice.
Despite the end result of the Caps finding twine, Montgomery was more than accepting of such a result — and the risk that his skaters took, especially on the blue line, to generate such a look.
"The one goal that we gave up was an odd-man rush,” Montgomery said. “Pasta has the puck in the slot — because the defenseman goes back door, he's wide open. And we're going to take that every time. It's a blocked shot, goes the other way. That's hockey.”
We’ve already seen the fruits of that willingness to operate with more aggression in search of high-danger scoring chances. Through four games now, the Bruins are averaging 5.25 goals per game — and rank fifth in the NHL in 5v5 high-danger scoring chances per 60 minutes.
But with those rewards come plenty of risks, as evidenced by the defensive blips that have popped up throughout Boston’s first three victories of the 2022-23 campaign.
Given Montgomery’s comments, the Bruins seem to be more than willing to live with an odd-man rush or two … so long as they’re capitalizing down the other end of the sheet and adhering to their defensive gameplan for a majority of those 60 minutes of action.
On Tuesday night up in Ottawa, the B’s met one of those conditions, burying another five goals past the Senators and receiving offensive contributions up and down the depth chart (tallies from Patrice Bergeron, David Krejci, A.J. Greer, Nick Foligno and David Pastrnak).
But as far as the other objective? The Bruins weren’t knocked for a lapse or two in their own zone, as was the case in their first three games.
Rather, it was much worse.
In the immediate aftermath of Boston’s 7-5 setback against the Senators on Tuesday night — the B’s first loss of the new season — a lot of narratives could have been brewed up to account for Boston’s defensive shortcomings.
Yes, the Bruins were on the second leg of a back-to-back slate after taking down the Panthers on Monday night. Yes, Boston wasn’t exactly helped out in net by Jeremy Swayman, who relinquished six goals over the first two periods of play before getting pulled in favor of Linus Ullmark.
“The effort we gave was unbelievable," Swayman said. "I felt like we let the boys down, so I’m going to go back to the drawing board and do whatever I can, because I guarantee you that I’m going to make this up. … A lot of leaky goals. Something that I can fix, and I will.”
And no doubt, this current crop of blueliners likely deserves a bit more rope given the personnel in place — especially with Charlie McAvoy, Matt Grzelcyk and Brandon Carlo still on the mend.
But regardless of factors such as fatigue or even injuries, Montgomery wasn’t going to hang on any crutch to absolve the B’s sub-standard performance against Ottawa.
"Our checking was ... I guess the best word to describe it was ... atrocious,” Montgomery said. “We were on the wrong side of pucks. We weren't coming back hard enough. We left our goalie out to dry. We didn't protect the netfront.”
Following a game against the Panthers in which it seemed like just about every D-man pulled on the rope to push Boston to a win, the opposite took place against the Sens.
Another shaky game from Jakub Zboril and some expected rust from Anton Stralman (whose turnover directly led to Mark Kastelic’s tally in the second period) hurt Boston further down on the depth chart, but even some of the early stalwarts on the blue line such as Derek Forbort (whose pinch led to a 2-on-1 chance and a goal for Shane Pinto) and Connor Clifton had games to forget.
In total, during 44:39 of 5v5 ice time on Tuesday night, the Senators held a 32-16 edge in scoring chances and generated 14 high-danger looks against Swayman and Ullmark. Even if Swayman was otherworldly between the pipes, such a lax netfront structure would have doomed him to an unsightly stat line, nonetheless.
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“I thought we hung him out to dry,” Montgomery said of Swayman. “His first two shots on net are 3-on-2s coming 100 miles per hour. We didn’t put anybody, we didn’t get in anybody’s way. And that’s a tough way to start a game on fresh ice.”
Of course, as ugly as Tuesday’s game was, Montgomery wasn’t viewing the events playing out in front of him as a sign of things to come — in which the Bruins will need to win games, 6-5 or 5-4, for the next six-plus weeks until their injured crop of skaters return.
As startling as the final score was, the Bruins have had plenty of “burn-the-tape” contests in which they coughed up six or seven tallies, even during Cassidy’s tenure. Even with Tuesday’s final score logged, the Bruins are actually still sitting 25th overall in the NHL in high-danger scoring chances surrendered per 60 minutes (10.28) — a testament to Boston’s overall sturdy structure for a majority of their wins against Washington, Arizona and Florida.
More than anything, Tuesday’s loss should stand as a stark example of the risk that comes when defensive principles slip — as well as the fight that remains present on Boston’s bench.
“We’re resilient,” Montgomery said. “That's a great group to coach. They just keep fighting and keep playing for each other.”