The Bruins have earned home ice advantage for the entire playoffs and their fans should be pleased about that. The team’s 32-4-3 record at the Garden says so.
But is their recent power outage on Causeway Street any cause for concern?
In their last four games at home, the B’s have scored a grand total of five regulation goals, one of which came with less than two seconds left and the game having already been lost to Nashville.
Now, granted, that was the only game that the B’s lost in the four-game set, and winning is all that matters. And it could be dangerous to look for any kind of trend in a team’s play after they’ve clinched the Presidents’ Trophy.
But coach Jim Montgomery sees a little more at issue than having secured the top spot.
“I don’t think it’s because we clinched because we’re scoring on the road, right? I think it’s more that teams come in here wanting to shut us down first. I don’t think we get as many odd-man rushes here at home as we do on the road and I think that’s just teams doing a good job against us,” said Montgomery on Friday as just a handful of players took to the sheet at Warrior Ice Arena. “But more importantly, I don’t think we’ve been playing fast at home. I don’t think we’re playing fast on our breakouts, I don’t think in the neutral zone we are, either. There’s a lot of stickhandling. Too much stickhandling in all three zones. (Thursday against Toronto), for whatever reasons, we weren’t very creative. I thought there were plays to make. And I think Toronto is very underrated as a defensive team. They’re really good there. I think they’re one of the best forechecking and reloading teams in the league. But, still, there’s always plays to be made. It’s just that our creative minds weren’t there and we weren’t seeing it so we were just slow. When guys over-stickhandle, that’s when I know we’re not seeing it clean like we usually do.”
Much as it is with the power play, which went 0-for-4 against Toronto (though David Pastrnak’s game-winner came just seconds after the last PP ended and the offending player, Morgan Rielly, was still getting back into the play), the answer to the relative drought could be in a little simplification.
Montgomery liked what he was saw in the third period on Thursday, and not because his team was so dazzling.
“I thought our first period was, I thought our second period wasn’t. In the third period, I don’t think we were very creative, but we got simple,” said Montgomery. “We went and forechecked. I think that tying goal is just a willingness to forecheck and then we’re five guys connected on the forecheck. (Brandon) Carlo keeps it in with forwards coming back. (Charlie Coyle) is reloading to a good area in the middle of the ice and that’s why he gets that opportunity. And I think we just gutted one out and we found a way.”
Montgomery continued to rave about Pastrnak, whom he credited with fighting through illness to notch the OT winner, his second in a week and third GWG in the last four games.
With his one-timer, Pastrnak is forever changing his angles and releases and Montgomery compared him to Pedro Martinez setting up hitters. He also referred to him as “an artist.” Pastrnak has four games left to score three goals and hit the 60-goal mark, which would be a telling plateau for Montgomery.
“It means you’re an elite goal scorer. I mean as elite as there is,” said Montgomery. “To think that in the Bruins’ great history that Phil Esposito is the only other player that has done it is pretty amazing because of all the great players that have come through here. And goal scorers — Cam Neely, (Rick Middleton), (Johnny Bucyk), Ken Hodge. Wayne Cashman, my head coach in Philadelphia for a little while. There were so many great players who have come through here that have scored a lot of goals. And the fact that he’s on the verge of being the only the second to score 60 … now you’re talking about the history of great goal scorers and you’re talking about the era of the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s where goal scoring was … so high until about ’95.”
On top of it all, his breezy personality is unique.
“I just love his air of confidence – but it’s a jovial confidence,” said Montgomery. “He makes others want to be around him and be at the rink because of his attitude. He doesn’t have a lot of bad days and that’s an infectious attitude that over a course of a long season like we have not only helps short-term but long-term as well. That’s why he’s ‘Pasta.’ ”
Montgomery said David Krejci (lower body) is “very doubtful” for the weekend games against New Jersey and at Philadelphia. Charlie McAvoy, who crashed hard into the end boards and left Thursday’s game in the second period, “it’s just ( a matter of) how he responds to treatment,” said Montgomery. He termed them both as “day-to-day.”
He said that Taylor Hall, out since Feb. 25 with a lower body injury, is a “possibility for this weekend.”