These are not Bruce Cassidy’s Bruins. The 2022-23 B’s are suddenly the NHL’s most high-flying show, as they’ve scored five or more goals in all four of their games and currently lead the league in scoring.
Unfortunately, they’re also giving up a lot more goals, including seven in their first loss of the season Tuesday in Ottawa.
Making his weekly appearance on The Greg Hill Show on Thursday, Mike Milbury said that while he likes the more offensive style, he was “ticked off” to see the Bruins abandoning basic defensive principles that he believes should be non-negotiable.
“Obviously they can score goals, and obviously they can give them up,” Milbury began as he launched into a lengthy rant. “I don’t mind this new philosophy of getting the defense involved, wide open, push the pace, but there are principles of the game, particularly at the defensive end, that are sacrosanct. You just can’t break these rules. If you break them, you have to go to confession. You just can’t do it. OK, the excuses are there. Three of their top four guys are out on defense, and they played their third game in four nights, and it’s Ottawa’s home opener. But it’s two points you could put in the bank while these guys are out, and you can maybe get yourself a home-ice advantage when it comes to playoffs, which makes a difference.
“But the mental mistakes they made in the game against Ottawa, I’m still ticked off about these really basic defensive plays and breakdowns that could’ve been prevented. It had nothing to do with fatigue. I mean, the first goal, you have a backchecker, [A.J.] Greer, who gravitates to the puck like a little kid at soccer practice. They chase the ball all around, there’s like 10 kids around the ball. The guy’s playing in the National Hockey League! You pick up your wing and you cover him all the way back. That’s pretty simple. Line changes -- you can’t change when the play’s coming towards your end of the ice. They did that on the second goal.
“The third goal, stupid, stupid, stupid. They’ve got two defensemen behind the net. You can’t have two defensemen behind the net. Who’s guarding the front of the cage? This made me angry. I know it’s a touchy-feely generation, but count me in on the guys who say you have to have some structure to your game. I love the fact that they can score a bunch of goals, and that’s gonna get them out of some jams, and almost got them out of a jam against Ottawa the other night. They come back from three down, and almost come back from three down again, which is unheard of. But then they shoot themselves squarely, not in the foot, but in the head by making these incredibly undisciplined errors defensively.”
Milbury said that he doesn’t think Bruins coach Jim Montgomery has to sacrifice any of the offensive creativity the team has shown so far, but that he does need to make sure that they’re more structured in their own zone.
“If I were the coach, I would have them in the room today watching video, explaining to them, ‘This is the way we’re gonna play in our zone,’” he said. “When I coached, I wanted the defensive zone to be mine. You can have the offensive zone. Be creative. Do whatever dipsy-doodle crap you want to do. But don’t break my rules in my zone, because this is where we have to have structure.”
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