At the start of Monday’s practice at Warrior Ice Arena, Bruins’ coach Jim Montgomery lined up his players along the boards the length of the rink.
It had the look and formation as though they were being lined up for some wind sprints, rare in the normal course of an 82-game schedule these day but, after Saturday night’s shot-less third period and a 3-2 loss to the Ottawa Senators, it would have been understandable.
But that was not the path Montgomery took. On the other side of the rink, he flipped his own stick blade over and skated the length of the rink as his players tried to hit the blade. The coach dodged the wayward pucks (for the record, no one elevated) until Mason Lohrei finally connected. His teammates roared in child-like approval, putting everyone in the bouncy frame of mind for practice.
It was an obvious attempt at stress relief for Montgomery’s one-step-forward-one-step-back team. And for the 45-minute session, it appeared to work.
“I think we already had (a stress reliever) in the meeting beforehand. It’s just what I believe in. There’s different ways to people to believe you’re in it together and I always believe that humor-slash-care is a better way to free a creative mind than work harder,” said Montgomery.
But as we’ve just seen in recent world events, “joy” will take you only so far. There are problems with this team, especially on specials teams, and some eggs need to be cracked. A couple of notable changes were made on Monday.
The B’s announced later in the day that 20-year-old Matt Poitras, who has 1-3-4 totals in 14 games, was assigned to Providence for the first time in is young career.
Poitras had taken part in practice and though it was not known at the time of media availability that he was being sent down, it was clear from the line rushes that he wouldn’t be playing in St. Louis in Tuesday. Asked what he wanted to see from his young centerman, Montgomery said he wanted Poitras to have “more of an impact in the game, make more plays, understanding our structure.”
Montgomery also made a sizable swap to one his team’s major problem areas. On the first power-play unit, he replaced Charlie McAvoy with Hampus Lindholm at the top of the structure. In the B’s loss to Ottawa, the B’s were 0-for-2 but it was on the second PP late in the second period that was the most maddening. They did not get a shot on net and McAvoy passed on several opportunities to pound the puck toward the net.
Montgomery’s directive to Lindholm?
“To be direct like he’s been 5-on-5,” said Montgomery. “I think he’s a person on our team that has some offensive confidence right now. I just want him to be direct. We find our power play is being slow so we just want him shooting pucks or moving pucks quickly.”
Lindholm is looking more like the player he was two seasons ago when he had career-best point totals (10-43-53). It’s a stretch to say that he’s in the early Norris Trophy conversation like he was in 2022-23, but he’s got jump and is looking for his offense more than he did last season. His current goal total (three) matched his entire output last season.
“I think he’s being a lot more assertive and having a shot-first mentality, for sure,” said Montgomery. “I think that in the other two zones, when he moves the puck, he’s moving it and joining. So when he gets it, he has more time. Instead trying to beat the first and second forechecker, he’s moving it and jumping by those guys so when he joins the play he has more time.”
Lindholm said he’s been looking to add more offense to his game after last season. He’s helped produce a couple of goals this year by taking the puck to the net. His down –low foray on Saturday led to Brad Marchand’s tally.
“I looked at my game last year and then the year before. I was in a little different role than I was last year and maybe this year. But I’m still trying to find ways to produce,” said Lindholm.
“On the blue line, I’m really trying to get more pucks to the net.. That’s something I’ve really been trying to work a lot on and I feel like that’s been coming to life a little bit this season. I just want to keep getting better and better with it.”
The B’s PP is ranked 29th in the league with a 12.5% success rate. That futility has bled into their overall play.
“After reviewing the last game, there was clearly a lull in our team after not scoring on the power play,” said Montgomery. “It really affects the power-play guys a lot because they’re used to getting mojo and swagger from that. You get good offensive touches there, your get good looks and you feel better at 5-on-5.”…
In a story by Czech journalist over the weekend, it was reported that David Pastrnak missed a month and half of training over the summer because of an injury he sustained playing for Czechia in the World Championships last spring.
Pastrnak downplayed it when asked on Monday, amending the time off to “three, four weeks” and saying he’s “fine” now.
“Honestly that was the first time I had to deal with something in the summer. I always practice hard. You have your routines, your schedule you follow, so it was definitely something new but it’s no concern,” said Pastrnak, who would not divulge the nature of the injury….
A healthy scratch for the last three games, Morgan Geekie will return to the lineup on Tuesday in St. Louis and will at least start the game on the top line with Pastrnak and Pavel Zacha.