Sunday Skate: Did the Bruins mishandle their goalies in the playoffs?
All year long, Bruins coach Jim Montgomery praised goalie coach Bob Essensa for his handling of Linus Ullmark and Jeremy Swayman and often publicly deferred to Essensa when asked about goaltending decisions.
When the goalie situation went sideways in the playoffs, with Ullmark’s game deteriorating as the series went on before Boston finally switched to a cold Swayman in Game 7, Montgomery’s deference to Essensa came across to some as a passing of the buck for a questionable approach that had come under heavy criticism.
Montgomery aimed to rectify that narrative on Tuesday during his end-of-year press conference at TD Garden, where he sat alongside general manager Don Sweeney, president Cam Neely and CEO Charlie Jacobs.
When asked about what went into the starting goalie decisions for Games 5, 6 and 7, Montgomery made sure he took ownership.
“First of all, all season long I said, ‘Goalie Bob makes the decision.’ I make the final decision,” Montgomery said. “I’m the one that picks the starter. So, it’s not Goalie Bob’s decision, but I really relied on him heavily.”
Montgomery said at every step of the series that he believed they were making the right decisions in net, but on Tuesday he admitted that he now regrets not turning to Swayman earlier.
“In hindsight, absolutely,” he said. “The mistake I made is, I try to put our players in the best position to excel. There’s an added mental grind in the playoffs, and it takes a toll. That’s what I’ve learned through this grind, is the expectations that were put on our team going into the playoffs, there’s a price you pay. Everybody does. I think we are going to learn from this. Everybody – players, especially me, I am going to learn from this, and I am going to have to help players push through, which I didn’t do this year.”
Right after the Game 7 loss, Montgomery said that the only regret he could think of in that moment was splitting up Patrice Bergeron and Brad Marchand to start Game 5. In addition to now regretting how he handled the goalie situation, Montgomery also expressed regrets over not making defensive adjustments quicker and not doing more to motivate his players.
“The overriding one is it’s my job to get players to own the moment, seize the moment, and that didn’t happen,” he said. “That falls on me. I think with the hard times we went through, we have to learn from them. If we don’t learn from them, how are we going to grow? We’ll just repeat the same thing next year. For me, it’s being able to connect with the players over the course of the summer, build through training camp, about what we have to do to make sure we don’t have the same energy level, because we didn’t have the same energy level that we did in the regular season. We didn’t have the same puck confidence that we had in the regular season.
“…Hindsight, you can go back and look at everything, but the two things that come to mind that I learned: I already talked about the toll on the goaltenders and going to Sway a little earlier. What game that is, that’s debatable. And not starting with my normal lines for Game 5. I have my logic as to why it made sense, but it didn’t help us with our start, obviously. So, that I learned from.
“I think I could’ve switched the D pairings on who the matchups were a little quicker. We were shutting down one line really well. We weren’t shutting down another line really well. We did for two games, but we didn’t for five. Those are the things that really stick with me. But the number one thing is it’s my job to get players to elevate their games, and I didn’t do that.”
Montgomery didn’t say exactly when he wishes he had gone to Swayman, but reading between the lines, it seems like going into Game 6 was the inflection point. Ullmark had just struggled in Game 5, most notably turning the puck over in overtime on Florida’s winning goal.
Montgomery said he had a conversation with Ullmark at that point and that he was convinced that Ullmark was in the right state of mind to bounce back in Game 6. That didn’t happen, though, with Ullmark instead giving up six goals in a 7-5 loss.
Montgomery said the decision came down to Ullmark’s mental state, not a widely discussed potential injury Ullmark was dealing with. Ullmark told reporters last week that he was hurt, not injured, and that he never felt like whatever he was dealing with hindered his performance.
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Montgomery and Sweeney both backed that up, with Sweeney directly contradicting a report from ESPN’s Kevin Weekes that Ullmark was dealing with a “debilitating and painful injury that limited his mobility.”
“I will clarify that we get a medical report every day as an organization, who’s available to us,” Sweeney said. “The statement of a debilitating, painful injury might have been more pertinent to Patrice Bergeron and his injury. Again, we get a report as to who’s available. Linus was fully available to play. He had something that was going on very, very end of the season, but it had cleared up enough for him to play. Had he not been, we certainly would have made a different decision.”
Another widely discussed decision was the one to bring Bergeron back for Game 5 after he missed the first four games with a herniated disc in his back. The Bruins went up 3-1 in the series without Bergeron, but then lost all three games he played, with Bergeron posting an uncharacteristic minus-4 at 5-on-5 play.
Sweeney and Montgomery both stood by that decision, saying that Bergeron got all the medical clearance he and they needed to see.
“I’ll go back to the same answer: We get a medical report every day,” Sweeney said. “Patrice was categorically unavailable for Games 1 through 4. He had progressed to the point where he and the medical staff felt very comfortable that he was back and able to play at the level that he wants to. Now, he had missed time, so you’re jumping into the middle of the series. But he was ready to play.”
Montgomery said the idea of resting Bergeron another game when they were up 3-1 entering Game 5 crossed his mind, but that Bergeron shot the idea down and Montgomery was OK with playing him after that.
“After Game 3, I called Patrice,” Montgomery said. “We were in Florida, I was talking to him, I said, ‘I know you’re doing better. I’ve seen the video of your rehab skates. If we win Game 4, is it prudent for us to give you more time?’ He goes, ‘What do you mean?’ I go, ‘Well, do we not play you Game 5?’ And he said, ‘Monty, I’m playing Game 5.’ That was enough for me. You don’t keep Hall of Fame players out of the lineup.”
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