A poor effort in Tuesday’s 4-1 loss to Calgary has the Bruins questioning themselves with the league-leading Canucks in Boston on Thursday.
Jim Montgomery, the coach, didn’t mince words or assign blame for the nine-game break.
He remarked that the Bruins were awful on Tuesday night in their 4-1 home loss to the Calgary Flames.
“We didn’t measure up,” Montgomery remarked. “I just didn’t think we were good; I don’t think it was us looking past the opponent. We didn’t put up much effort.
Compared to the team that dominated Philadelphia to end the first half of the season, Boston was remarkably different.
Even more direct was Bruins captain Brad Marchand, who had two sticks in his face and a gash on his nose.
We performed poorly in every aspect. They were far more competitive than we were. We anticipated being a little out of practice. Sadly, we didn’t have the effort,” he remarked. “Our game was never played. They play ferociously. Whistles got them into a lot of trouble. We didn’t retaliate sufficiently to catch up to them as they ran around.
Montgomery was hopeful that his team would react after Marchand sustained his first hit, a cross-check to the bridge of his nose, which resulted in a huge penalty for Calgary and the ejection of Martin Pospisil.
“That didn’t occur,” Montgomery declared.
After two strong practice days, neither the captain nor the coach anticipated a failure.
“A little taken aback. We had two excellent practice days. I have no idea what took place tonight,” Marchand remarked. We must take lessons from it. The squad that comes to play here next is pretty good. It is something we must be ready for. We need to get back together and improve by Thursday.
Montgomery concurred.
“As a coach, you always believe that your preparation was adequate, but clearly it wasn’t,” he remarked. Both mental and physical errors were made in large quantities. It was a result of both individual and group underpreparedness.
Charlie McAvoy, whose ire spilled over into a third-period roughing penalty and misconduct, felt the Bruins didn’t play hard enough when the game was close.
“We need to improve in our first game back after the break,” he declared. “They got very violent tonight after the whistle had blown. We didn’t really try to replicate that, in my opinion. both mental and physical. Tonight, we just weren’t good enough. Practice was not transferable. They performed better than we did.
McAvoy emphasized that the group can grow from this and utilize it as motivation.
He remarked, “To be honest, every night in this league can be a humbling experience, so I don’t think I’m going to look too far into it.” We’ve resumed our gaming. We lead our conference as the top team. Everyone’s finest effort will be sought after, much more so than previously.
This is beneficial. It is helpful for us to know what to anticipate from each individual. This has vanished. After the break, I won’t focus on the first game. We have a lot of things to work on. We are aware that our work is far from complete. There’s always space for development. This will help us to improve.
After their defeat on Tuesday, THE BRUINS ARE QUICKLY TESTED. The best club in each conference squares up against one other on Thursday night when Boston (31-10-9) takes on Vancouver (34-11-5), who has the best record in the NHL after a breakout season.
Following Tuesday night’s defeat, Pavel Zacha remarked, “It’s a good challenge.” It is a different game for which we must prepare thoroughly. Since they have a great team, we should be eager to take on the challenge.
Canucks arrive with a 10-0-2 record. They lost to St. Louis on January 4 in regulation more than a month ago. They are first in the league in goals scored (3.78 per game), second in goals against (2.54), and first in goal difference (plus-60).
The Canucks are perfectly entitled to their self-satisfaction. Quinn Hughes is vying for the Norris Trophy, Thatcher Demko is the talk of the town when it comes to the Vezina, Brock Boeser (30 goals) is back to his best, and J.T. Miller (22 goals, 46 assists), who leads the team in scoring, may be having his finest hockey season. Rick Tocchet, the front-runner for the Jack Adams award as coach of the year, is in control of everything.