The Bruins again were inconsistent with their physicality in Tuesday night’s loss at the Garden to the Canes, who looked and played hungrier, although there were some encouraging signs of pluck from the Black and Gold.
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It’s nearly playoff time, and if the Bruins are going to tailor themselves a Stanley Cup championship, coach
Jim Montgomery realizes it will take a rougher bolt of fabric than the one that turned to tatters in Round 1 last spring against the Panthers.
“Something I reflect upon, last year in the playoffs,” Montgomery mused the other day, “I wasn’t vocal enough about physicality.”
The Bruins pushed out to a 3-1 series lead vs. Florida and either weren’t ready for, or simply couldn’t match, the Panthers’ determined push-back.
The Panthers punched back hard in all three elimination games — not so much with fists, but with nagging and unsettling persistence on pucks and by initiating body contact. The Bruins, fresh from their record-setting 65-12-5 regular season, couldn’t summon the truculence and grit necessary to fight for and win 50-50 pucks or create badly needed Grade A scoring chances by penetrating and holding inside ice.
The Bruins again were inconsistent with their physicality in
Tuesday night’s 4-1 loss to the Hurricanes at the Garden, game No. 79. Like the Panthers of a year earlier, the Canes looked and played hungrier, although there were some encouraging signs of pluck from the Black and Gold.
Two of those positives were the hit totals logged by
Andrew Peeke (8) and
Jacob Lauko (6). Their 14 combined smacks, along with five more from team captain
Brad Marchand, accounted for nearly half of the 40 hits the Bruins landed against a fast, aggressive Canes lineup.
Montgomery’s thinking: more of that. In big scoops, please.
“Especially those guys that have to relish their role,” he said. ”That’s what we want from Peeke. That’s what we want from Lauko. We want that from several others [who have that] as a role on our team, to augment that part as well.”
Prime candidates to deal out added hurt would be forwards
Morgan Geekie and
Trent Frederic, guys who have the frame and legs to make meaningful contact. In back, Peeke and third-pairing partner
Parker Wotherspoon have been pleasant contributors on the meaner side of the street of late.
But all volunteers are welcomed to join the hit parade. The pluses to a bolder hitting approach, noted Montgomery, are many.
“What it does for the whole is that it gives the bench energy,” he said. “Because big hits, finishing checks, and being hard to play against gives excitement to the group.”
And there’s the wear-down factor on the opposition. The team that imposes its will often takes it out of the other.
“They know they’re going to get hit,” added Montgomery. “So now, they go to a confrontational area and they might not get there as quick, they might panic, and that leads to turnovers and that leads to offense and that leads to territorial advantage.
“When we start for real here,” said Montgomery, referring to a week from Saturday, “those things matter over the course of a series. Not only Game 1, but Game 2, Game 3, Game 4, Game 5 . . . it matters in Game 6 and 7. That’s from the wearing down aspect, and from the aspect that you know you’re going to get rung.”
