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B's slide hits three; Marchand, Montgomery address 'The Shove' |
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Ty Anderson
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Not even a return to the comforts of TD Garden was enough to snap the Bruins out of their early-season funk Thursday night, as the Bruins fell into penalty troubles once again and struggled to manage the puck in a streak-extending 5-2 loss to the Stars.
“Our attitudes need to go in a better, healthier direction,” Bruins head coach Jim Montgomery said after his team’s latest setback. “Our attitudes are not in the moment. They’re on the results.”
By not being in the moment, Montgomery feels that his team is getting frustrated too quickly, and that they’re seemingly forgetting that winning games in this league is “really difficult.” That, for the Bruins, has manifested itself in the ugliness that’s become all too common, with those aforementioned penalty woes, and games seemingly slipping out of the B’s grasp in the blink of an eye.
To make things all the more frustrating, this latest loss actually came with the Bruins out of the gate looking like a team ready to put their mini-slide behind them, with a shot barrage on the Stars’ Casey DeSmith and a four-on-four goal from Matt Poitras to David Pastrnak to give them a 1-0 lead.
Knotted at 1-1 through 20 minutes of play, the Bruins’ issues got worse — and in absolutely brutal fashion — when the Stars scored back-to-back-to-back power-play goals in a span of 8:28 in the middle frame.
With the loss, the Bruins dropped to 3-4-1, and though they’re still just three points away from the first-place Panthers, they are also officially just two points ahead of last-place Montreal in the Atlantic Division.
Brazeau responds
If there’s a positive to take from Thursday’s loss, other than the fact that the game ultimately came to end without another power-play goal against in the third period, it’s that Justin Brazeau returned to the lineup and looked as good as he has at any point in this young season.
Brazeau even got on the board with a power-play strike of his own.
Even beyond the power-play goal, the 6-foot-5, 220-pound Brazeau was all over the ice (in a good way), generating high-danger chances and second-chance opportunities throughout the evening.
So much has been made about the B’s middle six and its inability to get some scoring on the board at the same rate it did a year ago. And a player like Brazeau is included in that conversation given the impressive sample size he had a year ago, with five goals in 19 regular-season games and a solid playoff showing in a limited role.
To get him going, even if it’s just one goal in one game, and to have him respond the way he did after being scratched against the Predators has to be a positive development in an otherwise frustrating game for the Bruins.
Montgomery, Marchand address ‘The Shove’ in Utah
Bruins captain Brad Marchand deleted his Twitter account many moons ago now. So, it actually is possible that Marchand was as blissfully unaware as he appeared when it came to the reaction the shove that Jim Montgomery gave him in Utah had garnered on social media.
“No? You’re kind of scaring me,” a smirking Marchand said when asked if he was aware of the incident being referenced. “That’s a thing? People are very sensitive these days and it’s unfortunate how coaches are scrutinized over things like that. There’s a lack of accountability nowadays because people can’t handle the heat. But if you make a mistake like that, you deserve to hear about it.
“I’m glad he said something about it. If he didn’t, we would have a much bigger issue.”
And Marchand’s much ado about nothing take on it was, for the most part, shared by his head coach.
“Between Marchy and I, there didn’t need to be a conversation,” Montgomery said following Thursday’s morning skate in Brighton. “Him and I are both emotional people. I’m not ecstatic with myself about it, but I don’t think about it afterwards, and neither does he. He’s a pro, he’s a great player that does so many good things for us and he has high expectations as well. For us, that’s over and done with.”
The fact that it was Marchand and not one of the team’s bottom-of-the-roster types or prospects who was on the receiving end of that tirade was certainly telling, and a big reason why Montgomery felt able to throw that kind of heat at No. 63 in the first place.
“No question,” Montgomery said when asked about being able to have that kind of exchange with Marchand because of the relationship between the two. “You don’t see me doing that on a young player, right? Because they need the freedom and growth to know that we’re gonna talk to them, show them video, but a player like [Marchand] or David Pastrnak, I can talk to them right on the bench.”
With Montgomery believing that the Bruins are ‘lucky’ to have the record they do at this point, it’s clear that there will no sacred cows on the B’s bench.
And that the pushes will continue until the Bruins get their game right.
“Listen, there’s an accountability that needs to be held in this room, and nobody’s absolved from that,” Marchand, who is still looking for his first goal of the season, said. “I made a really bad mistake and at a bad time in the game, and that’s something that’s not acceptable and I shouldn’t have done to begin with. I should be held accountable and I’m glad he did.”
Everything else
- Some other positives from Thursday's game? I thought this was probably the best that Matt Poitras has looked since his season debut. Poitras was all over the ice, creating plays, and driving to hard areas. At just 5-foot-10 and under 180 pounds, Poitras is going to take his lumps, but his willingness and his compete are two of his best attributes.
- Want to talk about bad luck right now? Jim Montgomery's lineup tweaks, particularly with his current group of reserves, simply aren't working.
- The Bruins gotta get more from their big dawgs, namely David Pastrnak. Boston's superstar created enough looks in Nashville but he didn't finish on 'em, and Thursday started off on a positive but was ultimately torched by a pair of penalties.
Up next: The Maple Leafs are coming to town for a Saturday night showdown.
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