The Bruins are sliding into some dangerous territory at this early juncture of the hockey season.
After back-to-back concerning, mistake-filled defeats on the road where the team showed an alarming lack of discipline and couldn’t properly manage the puck, the B’s did the same thing at home in a 5-2 loss to the Dallas Stars on Thursday night at TD Garden. The Bruins took five penalties – including two apiece from Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak – that led to three power play goals allowed and committed 22 giveaways in an effort where they continue to repeat mistakes that spiral them further downward.
"It's very frustrating,” admitted Jim Montgomery. “There's not much to say except it's unacceptable and it's throughout the lineup."
The underperforming B’s can perhaps tell themselves that they’re only four points out of first place at this early juncture of the season, but this is a far different place than Boston usually has been early in the season with a record below .500 (3-4-1) and a negative goal differential (minus-6) weighing them down.
"This is a bit of new territory to have this happening to us early in the year,” said Charlie McAvoy of a B’s team that’s been a strong starter in past years. “These last few years we were just gangbusters [out of the gate]. But I think a little bit of our attitude is it hasn't won us anything being the best team in October.
“We’re in the process of these first 10 games where we’re trying to find out how we’re going to be our best. We don’t like these results and we’re acknowledging that. It’s different from what we’ve had in the past where we’ve been running and gunning [at the start of the season]. We’re not panicking in here, but we know that we need to be better.”
A big concern, however, is the way the team is playing as it relates to Montgomery in the last year of his contract with the Black and Gold. It was expected that the heat was going to turn up on the bench boss if the team struggled with him in a lame-duck situation, and that’s exactly what is beginning to play out in the early going.
It’s a situation that probably played a big role in the incident that played out last weekend with Montgomery uncharacteristically lashing out at his captain, Brad Marchand, on the bench after an offensive zone turnover that led to a goal.
Jumbo yelling at Marchand pic.twitter.com/YiLVFRhZXz
— Mr. Tenkrat (@PeterTenkrat) October 20, 2024
"Between Marchy and I, there didn't need to be a conversation,” said Montgomery after the dust-up where the coach verbally lambasted the captain and then gave him a nudge in the shoulder to perhaps make certain he knew he was talking about him, in particular, on the bench. “He and I are both emotional people. I'm not ecstatic w/myself about it, but I don't think about it afterward and neither does he. He's a pro and a great player that does so many things. For us it’s over and done with.”
Does something like that happen if Montgomery has job security and piece of mind in the middle of a long-term contract?
It’s safe to say probably not, but instead the B’s find themselves in a situation where they’ve responded to that polarizing incident with a pair of uninspired performances filled with the same old mistakes. The Bruins aren’t scoring enough or moving the puck quickly enough to play the team game that Montgomery always looks for, and they continue to take offensive zone penalties and infractions that are a direct result of stickwork rather than good, old-fashioned effort.
It has all pushed the B’s bench boss to determine that the Bruins need a change in “attitude” from what he has witnessed early in the season.
"Our attitudes need to go in a better, healthier direction as in trying to control what we can control, which is excelling in your role,” said Montgomery. “Our attitudes are not in the moment. They're on the results and when your attitude is on results then you tend to take penalties because you get frustrated quickly, and you tend to turn the puck over a lot because you don’t want to work for the offense.
“You want results right away and that attitude of [not] being willing to work for what we want to get is causing some struggles right now.”
The evidence is overwhelming that the Bruins simply aren’t responding to some very simple things that are bogging them down. The B’s have a commanding lead among NHL teams in minor penalties (44) and have 110 penalty minutes already this season, and that is a preventable problem in every way.
Just look at the penalties taken by Pastrnak for hooking just 11 seconds into the second period that led to a Dallas power play goal. That infraction was caused solely because Boston’s star player was trying to use his stick rather than moving his feet into a defensive position.
Then in the third period, the Bruins were playing better hockey and trying desperately to engineer a comeback, and Marchand took a needless cross-checking penalty at the offensive blue line that was well away from the puck. The penalty undercut Boston’s momentum and made it impossible for the Black and Gold to dig themselves out of a deficit against one of the league’s best teams in Dallas.
“It starts with us, and we’ll work on that,” said Marchand. “A lot of the mistakes that we’re making and the reasons that we feel like we’re losing is because of a lack of respect for the game, consistency and details. Those are things that we can fix. If it’s a lack of effort and guys not caring, that would be a whole different issue. That is not what we have. When you go through stints like this, it’s something that you work your way out of and you kind of simplify things.
“You saw in the late second and third – after we had already been at a point where we shot ourselves in the foot with penalties and stuff – that when we play the right way, we are a good team. We’re just having a hard time understanding that we need to do that all the way through the game. There’s a lot of areas that we could point at that we need to be better right now and it’s a process.”
Right now, things have looked pretty ugly for the Black and Gold, and it remains to be seen if they are going to pull out of their current funk. The real question now becomes what’s going to be the impetus behind a change in play that isn’t coming amidst some very obvious, correctable things that are dragging down the Bruins currently.
