The Bruins aren’t as good as their 18-5-3 record would indicate them to be even as they vie with the New York Rangers for the best record in the Eastern Conference.
This was something Jim Montgomery freely admitted when they were mired in the middle of their three-game losing streak where their worst flaws all seemed to worsen and become significant problems.
Those flaws haven’t really changed even as they pulled out of their tailspin over the last couple of weeks, but clearly they have not been quite as pronounced with other areas of their game again on the upswing.
One area remains of significant concern to the Black and Gold, however.
It’s the team’s propensity for coughing up 6-on-5 goals when the other team has pulled their goalie late in games. The B’s found themselves in that situation yet again in Saturday afternoon’s 5-3 win over the Arizona Coyotes when a desperate Coyotes bunch pulled the goalie with a few minutes to go to no avail.
Still, the Bruins didn’t make Arizona pay either with an empty net goal and have not been able to ice games in those situations where they’ve been burned more than a few times.
The Bruins lead the NHL in a category to be avoided with seven goals allowed in those situations, with Montreal just behind with six goals allowed and then not another team after that with even half as many as the Black and Gold. It happened most recently against the Maple Leafs last weekend when Auston Matthews tied the game in the closing minute with Brandon Carlo and Derek Forbort futilely guarding the net as a group of Bruins bodies were strewn about on the ice.
The Bruins clearly have recognized it’s an issue, and worse still that it’s a problem that could really bite them come playoff-time if they can’t tighten things up significantly.
“At the end of the day they have six [skaters] and we have [five], right? But at the end of the day, we need to identify the best ways in which we cannot give up too many Grade A [chances]. A lot of teams are throwing stuff to the net as they should. It’s the best way to find mismatches. But for us it’s about staying loose and staying tight and controlling the stuff that we can control,” said Charlie McAvoy. “Sometimes bounces are going to go the other way. It happens. But as far as our positioning and our strategy in those 6-on-5 situations, we can control that.
“A lot of one-goal games. Monty said we have 10 minutes [of ice time] in those situations already this year and that we’re first in the league. It’s good to be in that position, but we just need to find ways to finish it.”
There are mitigating circumstances, of course.
The Bruins have faced opponents pulling their goaltender very often this season, which indicates, first of all, that Boston is playing with tight leads late into games. So that’s a good thing that they are actually holding leads late into games.
They also lead the NHL by a wide margin in the amount of time played against a team in a 6-on-5 situation by almost 10 minutes of ice time, so there have been many more opportunities for them to give up goals when an opponent pulls their goaltender. But the bottom line is that outcomes have not been positive for the B’s in those situations with seven goals allowed, only four empty net goals scored and already a handful of slim leads erased in those third periods as things have been pushed to overtime.
To hear the B's head coach explain it, the biggest challenge right now is the lack of crunch time experience for forwards he’s rotating through in those situations. Only Charlie Coyle and Brad Marchand have regularly played in those situations protecting late leads in the recent past, and they no longer have seasoned, experienced warriors like Patrice Bergeron, or David Krejci, winning key faceoffs that helped avoid getting hemmed in their own zone during 6-on-5 play.
All of that is leading to teaching moments for other forwards like Pavel Zacha and David Pastrnak, for instance, that were on the ice for Toronto’s game-tying strike a little over a week ago.
“I think we lead the league in those situations by more than nine minutes, so we’re going to give up more goals,” said Montgomery. “That’s just the odds. We know who the four defensemen are [in those situations]. But what makes it challenging is we have forwards playing in those important minutes that probably haven’t done it before except for 63 [Brad Marchand] and 13 [Charlie Coyle].
“So when you have new guys in new situations, you’ve got to expect more negative results. More than you would if you had Krejci and Bergeron doing it, and that’s just the way that it happens. We’re looking at more players to develop in those situations. There’s primarily been eight forwards that we’ve used in those situations because when we’re playing with the you’ll have to use six forwards. And depending on the faceoffs it might become seven or eight [forwards]. So we’re developing those seven or eight players. We know in the last 45 seconds who the two [defensemen] are that we expect to be out there, but it’s three or four forwards depending on where the draw is.”
So what lends itself to success for the forwards placed into those situations?
“The experience of being out there and having the calm, the inner calm, to make poised plays when you’re out there,” said Montgomery. “To be able to realize where the important ice. We’ve run out of the middle of the ice a couple of times. In Tampa we did, and I think in Toronto we did [it again] where we’ve run right out of the middle of the ice. The intentions are good but it’s kind of a panic read. You want to hold the most important area of the ice when they have possession.”
With all due respect to Montgomery, there's also very clearly some issues with too many Bruins defensemen that can be pushed around when things get chaotic late in the third period of close games. That was clear when the B's coach was loudly admonishing his D-men at practice earlier this week while demonstrating how to properly box out and lift sticks around the net front. This was the lackluster practice that Montgomery mentioned with disapproval after a rough loss to Buffalo earlier this week.
Reading between the lines, though, it feels like it’s just going to take real-life experience for the Bruins to improve in a situation they’re landing on quite a bit this season while relying on defense and goaltending for success. The hope better be that it’s not the weakness that it is right now, or it could ultimately be their undoing at Stanley Cup playoff time as it was several times last spring against the Florida Panthers.
ONE TIMERS
1. Shout out to Marc Johnstone, who made his NHL debut this weekend as a 27-year-old rookie after playing at Sacred Heart and being cut from an ECHL team after turning pro before finally hooking on, first with the Toronto Marlies a couple of years ago, and with the Pittsburgh Penguins organization this season. What a great example of a different kind of pathway that somebody found in pro hockey while showing perseverance and betting on himself.
2. Count me among the skeptics that aren’t sure what Patrick Kane is going to be able to bring to the Reds Wings coming off a hip procedure that has routinely spelled doom for other NHL players. Hope I’m wrong but the 35-year-old has logged a lot of hard miles and relies on that lower body explosiveness for so much of his offensive success, and even simple hip scopes can take a long time for players like Brad Marchand to end up returning to form from. That’s not what Kane had done for his “hip resurfacing” procedure. Still, credit where it's due for scoring on Sunday night.
THERE IT IS!
— Detroit Red Wings (@DetroitRedWings) December 10, 2023
PATRICK KANE'S FIRST AS A RED WING! pic.twitter.com/8MObViy2Ke
3. Impressively consistent season for B’s defenseman Brandon Carlo, who has been in and out of the NHL’s top-10 in plus/minus and leads the team with a plus-13 mark this season. While Charlie McAvoy has ridden some pretty high ups and downs and Hampus Lindholm has been a bit of a disappointment, Carlo has been excellent defensively and popped up to make a few plays offensively. While eating big minutes whether he’s played with rookie Mason Lohrei or Lindholm.
4. A lot of differences of opinion about the JJ Peterka reverse hit on Charlie McAvoy that injured the Bruins defenseman. But if you can’t see that Peterka raised his elbow and opened back up toward McAvoy for contact rather than going for the puck, I don’t know what to tell you. It should have been a two-minute elbowing minor rather than anything more severe that, and I say that was a big proponent of the reverse hit as an offensive weapon.
The reverse hit elbow from JJ Peterka on Charlie McAvoy that knocked him out of last nights game with an upper body injury. At the very least should have been a penalty on the ice pic.twitter.com/C28GBanZ4J
— Joe Haggerty (@HackswithHaggs) December 8, 2023
5. This week might have been the first time Matt Poitras has been healthy scratched for the Bruins this season, but it won’t be the last time. Let’s not use the dreaded “load management” phrase, but it makes all the sense in the world to give the 19-year-old the occasional breather during his first time going through the rigors of an NHL season. “This is an opportunity for him to build some strength and rest into his program,” said Jim Montgomery. “It’s a grind. It’s a tough league. And this is a way we think he can help the Bruins the most and help his game the most in a positive fashion. This has been in the works for a little while. We started implementing it when we had finished those nine games in 16 days.”