BOSTON -- Since Jim Montgomery joined the Boston Bruins as coach on July 1, 2022, his team has barely experienced a blip during the regular season. There was the historic 65-12-5 record last season. Then, this season, even after losing their top two centers, the Bruins raced to a 14-1-3 start.
Now, though, after three consecutive losses, Boston is taking a long, hard look at where it can improve, its game, where its habits have slipped, where its guard has been let down.
“We’re hoping to grow out of this,” Montgomery said. “It’s about moving forward. In a lot of ways, we’ve welcomed this kind of adversity. We knew it was going to come. We knew we weren’t a 14-1-3 team. And that’s just being honest. We’re also not a team that gives up 17 goals in three games. We’ve got to get back to who we are.”
The Bruins will get a chance to turn their game around when the San Jose Sharks visit TD Garden on Thursday (7 p.m. ET; NBCSCA, NESN, SNP, SNO, SNE). The Sharks (5-15-2) have the fewest points in the NHL but have won their past two games.
Since its three-game losing streak started, Boston has lost ground in the tight Atlantic Division. The Bruins were up six points on the second-place Florida Panthers after defeating them 3-1 on Nov. 22. That lead has been cut to three points.
“Adversity is good,” defenseman Charlie McAvoy said. “I think it’s something we didn’t really have much last year. So this is a bit of a change of pace in here. You get used to winning so much that the losses, they hurt. They feel a lot different than maybe how they used to feel when they’re so few and far between. But overall, adversity’s good. We’re going to learn a lot more about ourselves as this season progresses.”
The first time Boston faced adversity last season was in Games 6 and 7 against Florida in the Eastern Conference First Round, a series it lost. But by then, there was no time to learn, no time to improve.
The Bruins hope their learning now will impact them when the moments are even bigger.
When they took the ice at Warrior Ice Arena on Wednesday, their first practice in 10 days, they focused on trying to improve their pace in addition to working on their checking game after being outscored 17-8 in losses to the Detroit Red Wings, New York Rangers and Columbus Blue Jackets.
“It gets back to checking,” Montgomery said. “I think we’ve just been an easy team to play against here. It’s not just the last three games, it’s probably the last six to seven. … Internally we didn’t like our possession game, we’re not hanging onto enough pucks. The more you make people defend, the less energy they have to come at you, but teams are coming at us full speed.”
Though Montgomery said he has been pleased with Boston's forecheck, everything from “the hashmarks in the offensive zone all the way back to our goal line, neutral zone forechecking included, not tight enough. Not taking away time and space.”
Montgomery also changed the lines, moving Brad Marchand to a line centered by Matthew Poitras, swapping him with Jake DeBrusk. He also moved Hampus Lindholm to a defense pair with McAvoy.
“There were pockets where we weren’t really putting together a full 60 (minutes),” McAvoy said. “We were giving up a lot more than we should have. Our goalies, time and time again, were bailing us out. You’re looking back on a couple saves a game where we don’t win and we don’t get a point if they’re not there for us. It’s not fair to ask them to do that every single night.”
At the Blue Jackets on Monday, Montgomery pulled Jeremy Swayman at 6:14 of the second period, trying to give his team a spark after the goalie had allowed two goals on 19 shots. Linus Ullmark allowed two more on 20 shots.
Montgomery, who met with Swayman on Wednesday, will return to Swayman against the Sharks.
“Whatever it takes for the team to win,” Swayman said, adding that he wants to make sure he finishes every game he starts.
The Bruins realize their goalies have, throughout the season, masked some deficiencies in their game. But they can’t rely on that. So on Wednesday, they got back to work on figuring themselves out, on relearning what they have to do to be successful, and in doing so, trying to understand more about themselves.
“Throughout a season you learn a lot about yourself, and it’s mostly in the bad, more than the good,” McAvoy said. “So it’s games that you were down by three and you came back and won. Things like that that you remember. But you have to earn those things. You’ve got to face that adversity head on and you’ve got to come out the other side.
“Oftentimes you’ve got to break through the wall. It’s not easy to get out of stuff like this when it’s not going great. But when you break through, you’ll be able to look back on it and that helps when playoff time comes around and you’re down in games, you lose two in a row, stuff like that. You learn a lot more about yourselves. So we’ve got to look at it from that way, not a ‘poor me’ way.
“We’re all right in here. We’re in a good spot in the standings. There’s no need to panic, but this is not our standard, so we don’t want to see it go on any further.”
