Tuesday 11/18/23
For the third game in a row, the Boston Bruins were once again drubbed last night, and this time against a not-very-good Columbus Blue Jackets team. The Bruins are giving up a lot of goals--5 or more in these last three games. Their system has broken down, they look listless, and real problems are starting to show, though you're also going to have stretches of the season where you falter. But when they do come, you want to get beat and see positive signs, if that makes sense. Sometimes you just lose. You got outplayed, you didn't breaks, someone was hot. These Bruins, though, are getting it handed to them.
I've been tuning in and out. When I put on the game against the Rangers the other day, what was immediately apparent to me was how much space the Bruins were allowing in the defensive zone. There was a lot of open ice, a lot of seams for rink-wide passes. When you're making those kinds of passes in the offensive zone, you're getting the goalie moving side to side, and once that happens, you're going to be beating that goalie. A goalie that has to keep moving laterally is a diminished goalie.
I wonder if this team has a focus problem. First, Jake DeBrusk missed that team meeting, and that kind of sounded to me like a running around at night/out on the town thing. Then one of the team's NESN commenters made a number of remarks about the "boys" going out after the game in New York, having a good time, which is okay--he added that--and getting their minds off things before heading to Columbus. I don't know. When I hear a team broadcaster talking casually on TV about the team boozing it up, that's not so great to me. And he's not even on the road with them, this guy. Now, it could be nothing and just something that got said as a general statement of hockey player life, but I take that as at least this hint of smoke.
Swayman was pulled last night after only allowing two goals. I only saw one of them, and it was bad. Short side. He gives up a bunch of bad short side goals. To wit: Game 7 of the first round exit last year. The reason he was taken out, though, had more to do with the state of the team than Swayman's play. They're not doing what Montgomery wants them to do. Which is the same reason he pulled Ullmark for the extra skater when the Bruins were done 4-1 with more than seven minutes left. You rarely see that.
It made total sense, though, but of course no one on something like Twitter was smart enough to understand this. He didn't pull Ullmark to try and win the game. He pulled Ullmark to make a point to his team. That if you want to play like dickheads, and you don't want to play the right way, then you leave me in this position to do shit like this, which is of your own making, so pull your heads out of your asses.
It was a wake up call. Same as the goalie switch. Because they're not playing the right way of late.
As for the goalies--I'm tired of it. Ullmark has more talent. Mentally what is he? I don't know. I've seen him melt down in the playoffs repeatedly now. I don't know that Swayman wouldn't and I have no real reason to give him the benefit of the doubt. I thought he was horrible in that Game 7 last year. You can say he was put in a bad spot, hadn't played, what have you, but it's still a results-based business. Results trump all. I think both benefit from the Bruins' system in the extreme. Somewhere else, without such a system, they'd be exposed. As is happening right now on the Bruins, with that system being in disorder, but hopefully just temporarily.
Practice time will help. Practice is big in hockey, at all levels of hockey. If you're not practicing because of the schedule, things can get iffy or worse. I don't think what's occurring right now is a bad thing. I almost welcome it. You need to go through some stuff and figure things out along the way, or else later on, when you're in a tight spot, facing adversity, you may be less equipped to do what you need to do to come through.

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