The Bruins officially have a goaltending plan for the playoffs, and Linus Ullmark and Jeremy Swayman know what it is. General manager Don Sweeney made that clear when meeting with the media after Thursday’s practice.
Previewing Bruins-Maple Leafs first-round series
“The noise that necessarily goes on outside is not necessarily filtered as much inside as what people may believe,” Sweeney said. “Our goalies know what the plan is. They know what their strengths are for our hockey club and how much we rely on them. Performance and results will dictate some of this, but we know what the plan is going in and so do they, and we’re comfortable with it.”
So, what is that plan? Well, the rest of us still don’t know. Sweeney had no interest in sharing.
“That’s not my job,” he said with a smile.
Maybe coach Jim Montgomery will let us know after Friday’s practice or Saturday’s morning skate, but don’t hold your breath. This is the Stanley Cup playoffs. Lineup decisions, often shared freely during the regular season, are suddenly treated like top-secret information.
There’s a good chance we won’t actually know the Game 1 starter until we see which goalie hits the ice first for warmups Saturday night. And there’s a good chance we won’t know the Game 2 starter until warmups that night (there’s still no official schedule for Game 2 and beyond, by the way, but Monday night seems likely).
UPDATE: The full series schedule is now out, and Game 2 is indeed Monday night.
It is at least notable, however, that the plan has already been set and the goalies already notified. Internally, at least, the Bruins are not taking this down to the wire. That suggests they probably had a good idea what the plan was going to be for a while, and didn’t need these extra couple days before Game 1 to debate amongst themselves.
Sweeney did add that the plan can of course change based on performance and results, and that there will continue to be game-to-game evaluations and discussions.
My guess all along has been that the Bruins will, in fact, rotate goalies – at least for the first two games, and then re-evaluate and go game-to-game from there.
Sweeney ‘proud’ of coaches, players
Because he went all-in last season, both financially and by trading draft capital, Sweeney was limited in terms of how much he could add both over the summer and leading up to this season’s trade deadline.
Combined with the retirements of Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci, as well as other roster turnover, Sweeney knew Montgomery and the rest of the coaching staff was going to have more work to do than last season. He also knew a number of players were going to have to step up and take hold of bigger roles.
On both fronts, Sweeney sounded like a happy GM Thursday, while also making it clear that there’s still work to do now that the playoffs are here.
“Amidst significant roster turnover after last season, our players and staff I believe did a really good job meeting a lot of unique challenges this year,” Sweeney said. “And we're proud of the accomplishments both at the team result level and individually. We're incredibly excited about the playoff opportunity, but not satisfied. Deep down, we’ve done our job to this point, and now the second phase begins and we chase what we want.
“The staff overall, and Monty leading that charge on the coaching level, attacked things that we were going to be a bit of a work-in-progress from day one,” Sweeney added. “Some opportunity for some players as we saw early on with [Matt] Poitras and [Johnny] Beecher doing a really good job early on in the season and grabbing hold of the opportunity, and other guys.
“In Danton Heinen’s case, really remarkable. Great relationship with Monty. I think the two of them fed off of that from a trust factor and parlayed it into an outstanding season for us on an individual and team level. And several other players have gone in to play elevated roles, and they’re all to be commended. But again, they're not satisfied. That want to go after the next level, and that starts this week.”
With some speculation that Montgomery could potentially be coaching for his job in the first round, it is worth taking a moment to appreciate the job he’s done this regular season. Many people did still expect the Bruins to make the playoffs, but there aren’t too many who predicted they would have 109 points.
Now it’s time to see what Montgomery and this roster is capable of doing in the playoffs.
Injury and roster updates
There were a couple encouraging developments at Thursday’s practice. For starters, Brandon Carlo practiced in full with no limitations. Carlo left Monday’s game early and did not play Tuesday, but Montgomery had said he anticipates Carlo being ready for Game 1.
Thursday’s practice pretty much confirms he will be. Carlo will have a big role to play against Toronto, both on the penalty kill and at 5-on-5, where he will consistently match up against one of the Maple Leafs’ top two lines.
The other was the sight of Justin Brazeau skating before practice and even doing some shooting. Brazeau hasn’t played since suffering an upper-body injury (likely something with his right arm) on April 2.
Sweeney said Brazeau is still considered week-to-week and is “very unlikely” to be ready for the start of the first round, but he didn’t rule out a possible return later in the series.
Another player working his way back from injury is defenseman Derek Forbort, who will play for AHL Providence this weekend while on a conditioning loan. Forbort has been out since March 2, and Sweeney said back then that the veteran’s season was likely over.
Sweeney said on Thursday that Forbort underwent two procedures, and admitted that he’s surprised by how much progress Forbort has already made.
“That’s a wait-and-see,” Sweeney said of Forbort. “Derek’s made great strides, a little bit surprisingly to tell you the truth. He was on an operating table not too long ago for two different situations. So, good on him, good on the training staff. We still have an undetermined timeline in terms of how he's gonna continue to progress, but it's certainly a positive sign that he's made the progress that he has.
“And credit to Derek, to tell you the truth, because he could’ve just shut things down completely. But he wants to play. He's a gamer and wants to play and wants to see whether or not the healing process can continue and he becomes a factor at some point in time during the playoffs.”
The Bruins had just 21 players at practice Thursday, including just 12 forwards. Normally they would have one more, and they had the cap space to bring one more up, but chose not to.
The cap goes away for the postseason Thursday night after the league’s final regular-season game, and Sweeney said he anticipates calling up two players before Friday’s practice. One will be rookie defenseman Mason Lohrei, and the other will almost certainly be a forward. Sweeney didn’t share who the forward will be, but Johnny Beecher would seem to be the most likely choice.
Here were the lines and pairings at Thursday’s practice:
Danton Heinen - Pavel Zacha - David Pastrnak
Brad Marchand - Charlie Coyle - Jake DeBrusk
Jakub Lauko - Morgan Geekie - Trent Frederic
James van Riemsdyk - Jesper Boqvist - Pat Maroon
Hampus Lindholm - Charlie McAvoy
Matt Grzelcyk - Brandon Carlo
Kevin Shattenkirk - Andrew Peeke
Parker Wotherspoon
Linus Ullmark
Jeremy Swayman
Marchand still learning as captain
Brad Marchand described his first season as Bruins captain as “a great learning experience,” and one that isn’t over yet.
“I was up and down,” Marchand said when asked how he felt he had balanced his own game with his captain’s responsibilities. “I thought there were times where I was doing well and times where I could be better. So, definitely areas to continue to improve upon and definitely things to work on over the summer and even down the stretch and playoffs. I think there’s some areas I’ve identified that I'd like to be better at and just continue to improve there.
“So, it was a great learning experience, great opportunity so far, and I think a good first year. But it's not over yet, so hopefully there's still room to improve here throughout the season and playoff time. There's always room for growth. Even watching Bergy [Patrice Bergeron] and Zee [Zdeno Chara], the way that they continued to grow until the day that they were done. You're never at the peak until it's all over. So, I'm looking forward to growing.”
One message Marchand wants to make clear this week: The Bruins’ 4-0-0 record against the Leafs in the regular season means nothing.
“It means nothing,” Marchand said. “They've changed since the deadline. They're playing really well. Playoff time, everything changes. It's a clean slate, for every team. It doesn't matter where you finished or how you did in the regular season. It's over and done with. It all begins again. So, it's both starting from ground zero again.”
Matching up with Matthews
Slowing down Auston Matthews will be priority No. 1 for the Bruins defensively. There’s probably no way to completely shut down the Rocket Richard Trophy winner, whose 69 goals this season are the most by any player since Mario Lemieux hit that mark in 1995-96.
But limiting Matthews’ chances and not letting him get open shots from high-danger areas will be paramount. Charlie Coyle is likely to be one of several players assigned the difficult job, as his line with wingers Brad Marchand and Jake DeBrusk is arguably the Bruins’ best defensive line.
On Thursday, Coyle shared the keys to defending Matthews as he sees them.
“You have to be hard on a guy like that and limit his time and space with the puck,” Coyle said. “He's really good at getting in position to receive the puck, and he's got linemates who can put it right on his tape for him. So, you just gotta kind of know where he is, especially in our D-zone. He likes to loop away after maybe cycling it and kind of finding that sweet spot coming down Broadway there in the middle.
“It's not just a one-person job. It's kind of on everyone to be there, be tight, be compact. But he's a guy who likes to find those scoring areas, whether he has the puck or not, and they're pretty good at getting it to him.”
Forcing Matthews to defend in his own zone will be another key. Matthews has developed into a very good defensive center, too, but the Bruins would much rather force him to work on that end of the ice than chase him around their own zone.
“It's one thing to try to stop a guy in your own zone, but to hem him down in his own zone and tire him out down there and play big and wear him out and win your battles against a guy like that in his own zone, that's obviously key, too, to try to tire him out,” Coyle said. “A lot of times if you're working in your D-zone – we all go through it – it’s hard to exert that energy and go down the other end and be a force down there, too.”