After Saturday night’s win in Toronto that put the Bruins up 3-1 on the Maple Leafs, Boston coach Jim Montgomery was predictably asked what his team could learn from last year, when they were in the same situation before suffering three straight losses to the Florida Panthers.
What went wrong for Bruins in Game 5 loss?
“It hurt. We’re gonna see how much we’ve learned, because we’ll see by our start on Tuesday,” Montgomery said.
Apparently, they didn’t learn enough. The Bruins got off to an awful start Tuesday night in Game 5, never led, and ultimately lost 2-1 in overtime to a Leafs team that was missing star center Auston Matthews. Now the series heads back to Toronto for Game 6 on Thursday.
And now there are and will be more uncomfortable questions. Why did the Bruins start so slow? They surrendered a goal 5:33 into the game and got outshot 11-2 in the first period. Despite the fact that Montgomery had made starting fast a point of emphasis the last couple days. He even stopped practice after just a few minutes on Monday because he didn’t like the pace in the first couple drills.
“We weren’t good enough. Simple as that,” Montgomery said. “Toronto came out ready to play. They took it to us. We weren’t ready to match their desperation.”
Why? Why wasn’t this team ready for that? They did the same thing last year in Game 5 against Florida. They started slow in that one, fell behind early, never led, and lost in overtime.
“We go into the game and we're always trying to evaluate our execution, our effort and our emotion,” Montgomery said. “Our execution was off. And I think our effort didn't match theirs. The emotion, I thought our crowd was great, I thought we had emotion going into the game. That was the only part of the three E’s that I evaluate that I thought we had.”
Does Montgomery regret his personnel changes? Last year, changing his lineup for Game 5 after wins in Games 3 and 4 was understandable, because Patrice Bergeron just got cleared to play. His line combinations were hard to figure out, though, and Montgomery ultimately had to change everything up before the first period was even over.
Montgomery changed his lineup after two straight wins again this year, but this time there was no Bergeron to make room for. He inserted Justin Brazeau and took out Johnny Beecher up front, and he put Matt Grzelcyk in for Kevin Shattenkirk on defense. He again had to change lines and pairings midgame when the ones he started with weren’t working.
Brazeau helped create some of the Bruins’ best offensive chances, so it would be hard to complain about him. But whether Beecher was the right forward to take out is certainly debatable. He had been the Bruins’ best faceoff man in this series. They won just 40% of their draws without him Tuesday.
Shattenkirk had been on the ice for four of the Bruins’ seven goals against in the first four games, so taking him out was understandable. Grzelcyk, however, had some rough shifts at both the beginning and end of the game. He looked jumpy early on, and he and Charlie McAvoy got hemmed in for a long defensive-zone shift shortly before Toronto’s opening goal.
On the Leafs’ overtime winner, John Tavares drove wide on Grzelcyk before shoveling the puck to the front. It was a rough play for Grzelcyk, but in fairness, it was a rougher play for McAvoy and Charlie Coyle, both of whom had a chance to either clear away the rebound or cover the goal-scorer, Matthew Knies, but did neither.
“No, I don’t,” Montgomery said when asked if he thought his personnel changes contributed to the disjointed start. “We made three changes before Game 3. I don’t think changing personnel… we’ll have to evaluate it and see how everybody did when we review the film and see if we’re gonna make different changes.”
Of course, those changes before Game 3 came after a loss in Game 2. That is a big difference. Changing a lineup that just won two straight games on the road is bound to be second-guessed if you lose. Why even consider it? Montgomery answered that pre-emptively after Tuesday’s morning skate.
“You don’t want to change things just to change things,” he said. “But if you think your team can get better because of matchups or because of history with players and where you think they might be best utilized to help the Bruins, that’s when you look at potentially making changes.”
Just blaming Montgomery’s lineup changes would let too many players off the hook, though. McAvoy and Coyle blew the net-front coverage on the overtime winner, bringing back too many bad memories of the blown coverages during last year’s first-round collapse.
David Pastrnak played 18:30 at 5-on-5 and the Bruins had zero high-danger chances during those minutes. He seemed to be fighting the puck all night, committing several turnovers. Brad Marchand, so dominant through four games, had zero shots on goal. Jake DeBrusk, also very good in this series before Tuesday night, had one shot attempt. Pavel Zacha also had one shot attempt, and he lost 13 of his 17 faceoffs. Hampus Lindholm had a couple turnovers on breakouts, including one late in regulation that could have been costly.
All of those guys need to bounce back in Game 6. How do they do that? How do those team leaders make sure this doesn’t snowball like last year?
“We just have to move on to the next game,” Montgomery said. “That’s the playoffs. … For the majority of the series, we played real good hockey. That’s what we have to get back to Thursday night.”
If there’s one uncomfortable question Montgomery doesn’t have to answer this year compared to last year, it’s about goaltending. Linus Ullmark struggled in Game 5 last year, leading to questions about how much longer Montgomery would stick with him. Jeremy Swayman continued his series-long stellar play in this year’s Game 5, despite the loss. There shouldn’t be much of a question about who starts Game 6.
All those other uncomfortable questions, though? They’re back, and they’re not going away until or unless the Bruins win one more game.