BOSTON – The Bruins will be back on home ice on Thursday night when they host the Dallas Stars at TD Garden. Boston will be aiming to snap its two-game skid after dropping the final two contests on the Western road trip.
“We have an opportunity tonight to bounce back and start understanding the way we need to play to be better,” Bruins captain Brad Marchand said following morning skate at Warrior Ice Arena. “We looked at some video today to see areas we can improve upon. It’s an opportunity for us to work at that and get better. You can’t get stuck looking in the past, things we can’t change.
“It’s about looking forward and understanding things that we need to be a little bit better at and start working towards each day.”
Bruins coach Jim Montgomery added that he is most concerned about the team’s process and making sure that is shored up as the team gets through its early-season struggles.
“I’m a process-oriented coach and there’s certain things that drive results,” said Montgomery. “Our process isn’t really good right now…if you want your team to be consistent, I have to be consistent in my messaging. We’ve given up too many odd-man rushes and most of them are derived from turnovers. That’s not us being patient with our offensive games and we’re taking too many penalties.
“And all those things are parts of our process that lead to results and our results are our Grade A chances and we’re not hitting our numbers there right now.”