Bruins Turning Page, Focus to Game 6 in Sunrise

BEDFORD, Mass. -Naturally, the Bruins would have preferred not to be boarding a flight to South Florida on Thursday afternoon. An ideal situation would have had them at home with their families, enjoying some down time and preparing for Round 2 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
But the postseason is rarely ideal.
The Black & Gold learned that the hard way on Wednesday night with a heartbreaking overtime loss to the Panthers in Game 5 at TD Garden that cut Boston's lead in their opening-round series to 3-2

The Bruins, however, are still in an enviable position as they head back to Sunrise for Friday night's Game 6 with a second opportunity to close out the Panthers.
"It's obviously not what we wanted today," Nick Foligno said during a press conference at Hanscom Field before the Bruins' afternoon flight to Florida. "But that's the reality of the situation. I think we're excited about the opportunity we've given ourselves to have another crack at it and fix some of the things we didn't have our best at [Wednesday night].
"That's the excitement is our group has a ton of confidence of bouncing back. After a game like that, we're looking forward to putting our best foot forward [Friday night]."
Foligno, a veteran of 67 career playoff games across 11 trips to the postseason, said when you're vying for a Stanley Cup it's critical to remain even-keel.
"It's next. You can never get too high and too low in playoffs. It's an emotional roller coaster, I think, more for the families and fans than for us because we know it's hard. It's hard to win," said Foligno. "Teams fighting for their lives to keep their season alive and we're trying to close them out. There's a lot of emotions and I think if you're the team that can just stay above that and be real smart and detailed in how you go about your process, those are usually the teams that move on.
"I think for us it's knowing what we can improve on and being excited about another chance we've given ourselves to close this out. We're going down there with full intentions to do that."

On the Road Again

Coach Jim Montgomery believes that many of the mental mistakes the Bruins are committing on home ice are the result of trying to do too much in an effort to create more energy inside TD Garden. Boston, which has now lost two in a row on Causeway Street for the first time this season, has struggled as a whole to get to its game on home ice this series.
"A lot of times at home, because we love playing in front of our fans so much and we love the TD Garden that we want to make them happy right away instead of building our team game," said Montgomery. "We try and get results right away and a lot of times when you're forcing plays, the other team is forcing you into tough areas instead of just maybe moving it up the wall or putting it in on the forecheck. You try and go through the middle tape to tape, and they go the other way."
Matt Grzelcyk echoed his coach's sentiments, saying that it's sometimes easier to play a more buttoned-up style in enemy territory.
"Maybe just trying to do a little bit too much," Grzelcyk said of the B's issues on home ice. "Sometimes I think when you're on the road it's a little bit easier to play a simple game, play north hockey like coach always says. We seem to feed off that a little bit better. Nothing we can do about it right now. We're going on the road here and we've had some success in their building. We'll try to get back to our game down there."

Krejci Traveling

Montgomery said that David Krejci, who has missed the last three games with an upper-body injury, will travel with the club to Sunrise. Whether or not he suits up for Game 6 is yet to be determined.
"Krejci is traveling with us, and he has a couple of more boxes to check before we can say he's a player," said Montgomery.
When it comes to which goaltender gets the call for Game 6, Montgomery said the team will consider giving Jeremy Swayman the start between the pipes.
"We're going to evaluate everything again," he said. "I have complete confidence in [Linus] Ullmark, and if we decide to go with Sway, I have complete confidence in him. The luck that we have is that at every position we have players that can go in and get the job done."
Montgomery said that the coaching staff would discuss any other potential lineup tweaks on the flight to Florida.
"I haven't had enough time," said Montgomery, who did note that Trent Frederic is a candidate to draw back into the lineup for Game 6. "I reviewed the game this morning at Warrior [Ice Arena] and haven't sat down with the staff yet. We'll do that on the plane."

On the Offensive

The Bruins have scored three or more goals in all five games of this first-round series against the Panthers. But Boston still feels that its left some offense on the table, particularly when it comes to generating "Grade A" opportunities, of which they had only eight in Game 5, per Montgomery.
As such, getting to the dirty areas around the net front will be a focus moving forward.
"That's just getting on the inside," said Foligno. "Grade As are usually on the inside but I think you just have to have those second or third efforts as well. I think that's where it comes from is being real tenacious, real hungry around the net and whacking home the ugly ones that a lot of times win playoff series, playoff games.
"That's gonna be a mindset for sure for a lot of our guys who are big guys who are willing to get to those areas."
Foligno, who played seven seasons with Florida goalie Sergei Bobrovsky in Columbus from 2012-19, said that type of approach generally serves a team well against any goaltender, no matter how elite they may be.
"It's a guy that I know very well, and I've obviously seen him be a great goaltender in this league but obviously have some areas in practice that you can sneak a few in on him," Foligno said with a smile. "But he's a great goalie. A lot of time with great goalies, it's not really a secret recipe. It's pressure, it's traffic, it's pucks on him at all times. You've got to try to tire him out. It's like what they're trying to do to ur goaltenders who are great goaltenders.
"Goalie [coach] Bob [Essensa] is really the guy that breaks it down. But for a guy like him, we're just gonna have to be around him more and make it harder on him. I think you saw that at their home game in Game 4, that's the kind of mindset and tenacity that we had that allowed us to get some goals against him."
David Pastrnak, meanwhile, is looking to get back to his patented shoot-first approach, having been held off the board since Game 3. The winger has two goals without an assist in five games.
"Probably shoot the puck more a little bit. Got a couple blocked shots and then you look for another play to see if somebody is open better. Definitely going with the shooting mindset moving forward," said Pastrnak, who acknowledged that having his shot blocked so much during the series has slightly altered his approach.
"It's exactly that. You get two shots blocked in a row from the same spot then obviously the third one you're trying to look for a better play, which sometimes it is, sometimes it's not. It's up to us or up to me to recognize that. It's gonna be very simple moving forward for me to have a shooting mentality."
Montgomery added that while Pastrnak has not been scoring quite at the rate he was used to during the regular season, he was pleased with the winger's play away from the puck in Game 5.
"I really trust David's decision making, especially when he has the puck or when he's offensively without it because I go to him a lot about what he sees in certain situations, and I learn through him," said Montgomery. "So, I really liked his habits without the puck [Wednesday night] and I just know that when his habits without the puck are really good, he's going to get more opportunities and I thought he had more opportunities [in Game 5] to do things than in Game 4 in Florida. So, if he continues along that trendm it's just a matter of time.
"In the playoffs, everything gets magnified. He has two goals in five games - I'm not a great mathematician, but is that a 40-goal pace? So, he's maybe a 20-goal pace behind, but it's small sample size. He gets two next game and he's back to 60-goal pace and that's we expect.
"That's what he has shown for us, and he's not only shown it this year, but he's shown it for years."

Communication is Key

Montgomery said that the Bruins' issues with turnovers, particularly on the overtime winner in Game 5, have everything to do with a lack of communication.
"I don't know if it's mental fatigue more than it's, for whatever reason, the two games that we've lost, those are the things that have killed us and they are at home," said Montgomery.
"There was just a miscommunication there and that's what I talk about between [Brad Marchand] and [Pavel] Zacha. Zacha thought he was going to hold the puck and go into the slot and get a better scoring chance and I think Marchy was thinking it was just going to go to him right around the boards and that's a miscommunication there.
"It was a miscommunication on the first goal, miscommunication behind the net on the OT winner, miscommunication on our second goal we gave up as well. The only one that wasn't was the power play goal they scored."
Grzelcyk admitted that he and Linus Ullmark were "not on the same page" on the unusual play that led to Matthew Tkachuk's winner in the extra session.
"That was a little bit of a different situation," said Grzelcyk. "We have two D going over to each corner. It's a little bit easier for the goalie to make the read. We just weren't on the same page, and they made a good play, smart play to throw it to the net and had some good patience on the goal there.
"It was tough. I didn't know if the puck was going to get to him. It was kind of a foot race with [Carter] Verhaeghe there, he had a step. Just wanted to cut him off in case he got to the puck first. They had a guy on the other wall as well. It was a tough play all around.
"We want to take better care of the puck. If you're on the same page and communicate a little better, we're going to take care of those things and get out of our own end. They seemed to feed on some of the mistakes we've been making. We've just got to play a more simple game and our skill will take over from there."

Wait, There's More

• Montgomery on Patrice Bergeron's return to the lineup in Game 5: "I thought he helped build our team, like he always does at both ends of the ice. Obviously, he got the big goal for us. I thought he was very intelligent on how he utilized his ice and, again, he helped us be better."
• Montgomery on his message to Jakub Lauko after a questionable tripping penalty led to a Florida power-play goal. "I just told him, 'Lauks, that's a tough call. I thought it was two people fighting for a loose puck.' I said, 'So, just pick your head up and be ready to go for us because you are going back out there.'"
• Montgomery on Charlie McAvoy's performance in Game 5 (seven shots, four hits, two assists in 30:57): "He's a horse back there and he doesn't need a lot of rest. He [takes] 20 seconds on the bench…he's like a Clydesdale, you let him out of the barn again and let him go and I thought he was very impactful…he was around the puck, he was making plays, and doing real good things for us last night."
• Montgomery on how the team has adjusted to playoff hockey: "Slowly would be my best answer. We have played well in the majority of this series, but we've had more lulls than we'd had in the regular season, so to speak."