It’s probably a credit to the strong culture the Boston Bruins have created that expectations have mushroomed to be so outsized among card-carrying fans of the Black and Gold. The Bruins have been a playoff team essentially since Zdeno Cara came to town almost 20 years ago and have won so frequently in the last few years that losing has become an unacceptable outcome.
A sold-out TD Garden crowd reminded the B’s of those great expectations during a 3-0 loss to the Washington Capitals on Saturday afternoon where they managed just four shots on net in the first and second periods each, and truthfully couldn’t get out of their own way in 60 minutes of pulseless hockey.
Matt Grzelcyk was perhaps luckiest of all getting ejected from the game in the first period after pitchforking Max Pacioretty between the legs with a wince-inducing spear that earned him a five-minute major and a game misconduct.
Matt Grzelcyk gets a 5-minute major and a game misconduct for hitting Pacioretty in the nuggets with a spear pic.twitter.com/Xf6aPtiRSV
— Joe Haggerty (@HackswithHaggs) February 10, 2024
It was the worst loss of the season in terms of aesthetics and falling to a lesser opponent like Washington, and it transpired in the same week as an equally frustrating defeat at the hands of the Calgary Flames coming out of the NHL All-Star break.
So it can’t be viewed as a one-off kind of deal while the boos and catcalls from the crowd got louder and lustier as the Bruins struggled to find their way. The game was perhaps even more frustrating because Jeremy Swayman (25 saves) kept the Bruins in it even as they didn’t deserve to be a close game, and it was absolutely unacceptable afterward to the B’s veterans in the dressing room.
“It just shouldn’t happen. There’s no excuse for it. I really have nothing to say to change that. It shouldn’t be a thing and now we’ve seen it twice in the last three games,” said Charlie Coyle. “It’s a mindset thing, really. It’s coming in and getting ready and focused for a game no matter what time it’s at, day or night, whatever. We have a standard here and we weren’t even close to reaching that today.”
Charlie Coyle on hearing a growing chorus of boos from Bruins fans during the latter moments of a 3-0 loss the Capitals pic.twitter.com/ZwUH3iJQ4e
— Joe Haggerty (@HackswithHaggs) February 11, 2024
The lack of offensive and defensive execution and good, old-fashioned effort eventually pushed Jim Montgomery to wash his hands with the whole thing, and hand the dressing room over to Brad Marchand and the players for the third period. It was a calculated move by a B’s bench boss that’s pushed buttons and pulled levers much more this season than he did last year, but it remains to be seen if it was the right move.
Certainly there was nobody in the Bruins dressing room who stood up and tried to drag Boston into the fight during the emotionless exercise.
The good news is that the Bruins have an experienced group that’s been in this kind of spot before, and there is an innate understanding there will be radical swings in level of play at this time of season. One night a team like the Bruins, with the playoffs a lock and not much urgency, can look apathetic against non-playoff teams like the Capitals and Flames, and on another they play like, well, themselves while trouncing the Western Conference’s best team in the Vancouver Canucks.
This is something that Brad Marchand had in mind while choosing his words about the team’s erratic performance following the Washington defeat.
“It’s not concerning. You don’t want to see it happen, but it’s not concerning,” said Marchand. “We just need to get back to the consistency that we’ve had for this last little bit and get back to our game in the next one.
“They seemed to be getting to every puck first and winning every battle, so we need to be better in that area. [The fans] have a short memory, a quick memory, but that’s their right when they pay tickets to watch. They can cheer if they like what they see and they can boo if they don’t. It’s up to them. We know we have passionate fans and they’re going to expect that we win every day. That’s not going to happen, but they need to see the effort. Obviously, they didn’t like it [against the Capitals].”
Buckle in B’s fans because we’ve reached the part of the NHL regular season where both the elevated competitiveness across the league and the finish line within reach now are causing strange things to happen on the ice. The Bruins just have to hope the boo-inducing play now helps toughen them up for the playoff battles ahead like last season’s record-breaking year didn’t when things turned nasty in the postseason.
ONE TIMERS
1. It’s good to hear Canucks netminder Thatcher Demko reached out to Jeremy Swayman and apologized for blowing off his goalie hug offer during NHL All-Star weekend. Apparently, they hugged it out prior to the B’s shutting down the Canucks on Thursday night. The good news is that everything got resolved. The bad news is that it’s not going to turn into a Roberto Luongo/Tim Thomas hatefest like during the 2011 Stanley Cup Final. That was tire-pumping awesomeness we won’t see repeated even if Boston and Vancouver are the last two hockey teams standing.
🎥 Jeremy Swayman on the missed hug seen 'round the world: "[Thatcher Demko] came up to me the next day and was like, 'Sway, I'm so sorry about that.' He just didn't see I guess. I was laughing, it was totally cool. There's still love. He's a good guy. We had a good chat." pic.twitter.com/uxeIKS888y
— Boston Bruins (@NHLBruins) February 8, 2024
2. Who knew that you were asking for a cross-check to the head if you have the audacity to wind up and slap a puck into an empty net at the end of a game? If only Morgan Rielly and the Maple Leafs got as upset about first-round playoff exits as they do about slapping the puck into an empty net. Bright side, it looks like the Battle of Ontario is back. Got to love that.
Ridly Greig buries the empty-netter with a slapshot and Morgan Rielly takes exception 😳 pic.twitter.com/6NISK4AMSt
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) February 11, 2024
3. Best of luck to 19-year-old Matt Poitras after undergoing right shoulder surgery that effectively ended his season. The timing makes total sense as going under the knife now will allow the playmaking center to have a full summer training and ready himself for next season after a five-month rehab following surgery. “There was a lot of discussion about what was best for Matty Poitras and in the end we were all on the same page with this being what was best for him moving forward since he’s 19. Now he’ll get a full summer to prepare that summer won’t get compromised [by rehab from surgery],” said Jim Montgomery. “I’m looking at what’s going to allow him to have success moving forward. He knows he can play in the league, and he knows that he can have success in the league. He knows his brain and his skill level and all that, and he knows the areas that he needs to grow in while getting that man strength and also get the stamina required where we don’t have do any maintenance with him. So he can be a full-time player next year. He’s going to be a big piece of what we’re doing here moving forward.” The thing the Poitras injury isn’t going to impact? It’s not going to make the B’s any more, or less, desperate for center help at the trade deadline. Poitras had essentially been phased out anyway for this season given the way Trent Frederic, Morgan Geekie and Jesper Boqvist have positively responded while getting reps at the center position.
4. Loved recent B’s callup and Quebec native Anthony Richard talking about how his brother is a huge Boston Bruins fan in a Quebec family where there’s plenty of understandable allegiance to the Montreal Canadiens as well. This perfectly depicts how people in Montreal view the game of hockey and how they perceive those that prefer a traditionally blue-collar style like the Boston Bruins organization. “My parents are probably going to drive down [for Saturday’s game], and I guess my brother. My brother actually has always been a huge Bruins fan, so he’s been battling the family over the Canadiens and Bruins the last couple of weeks. My mom was a huge Canadiens fan growing up, so I think she’s going to have to turn into a Bruins fan [for Saturday], that’s for sure. Playing when he was younger, [my brother] was a physical guy, so I think he loves that fighting, hitting, and stuff. In Montreal, they’re more passionate about the game of hockey, but here [in Boston] it's more like physical stuff and back in the day. He’s going to be happy [on Saturday] about the crowd.”
5. I’ll always remember Saturday night as NHL history in the making that I witnessed. That’s right, Alex Ovechkin passed Wayne Gretzky on the all-time list when he potted the empty netter to close out the scoring in Boston’s 3-0 loss to the Capitals. It just isn’t the record you were expecting to see involving Ovechkin. Ovie passed the Great One after scoring the 57th empty netter of his career, which now stands one better than the record amount Gretzky scored during his long Hall of Fame career. The question now for everybody is whether Ovechkin has enough in the tank to be able to pass Gretzky on the all-time goal-scoring list after looking like he’s slowed down quite a bit production-wise this season. After a lot of discussion about it last year and at the beginning of this season, we aren’t hearing as much about it anymore.