High-priced stars Charlie Coyle, Charlie McAvoy, Jeremy Swayman, and Nikita Zadorov have all underachieved in the early going.
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Gotta hand it to the Bruins, they’re bad right now, and for a reason, in fact for many reasons.
All of which point to no one but themselves and, to put a finer point on it, some month-long atrocious performances from key individuals fitted far too comfortably behind those Spoked-B sweaters. Topping the list of the culpable, in no particular order: Charlie Coyle, Charlie McAvoy, Jeremy Swayman, and Nikita Zadorov.
For those keeping track of the dollars, those Failing Four haul down a collective $28 million per season, roughly one-third of the payroll.
Much is expected of those four. As go the best players, so goes a team. Thus far, they have been the oversized cement shoes dragging the Bruins to a 4-6-1 start. The Bruins stand but 2 points better than the Blackhawks, who on Friday morning owned the No. 32 spot in the standings.
The Bruins, 2 points from dead last in the Original 32. Are we being entertained?
Sure, Montgomery could be canned, and let us not forget, the third-year Bruins coach is carrying the history of two failed postseason runs. He needs to be better, find answers, and right now it’s obvious he doesn’t have any.
If he can, Montgomery needs to tap into some mojo soon. However, it’s clear, a month into the season, the front office handed him a roster stocked with far too much AHL talent, most notably among the low-temp, low-producing forwards.
A priority right now should be
to sign Tyler Johnson out of his PTO. He’s not a cure-all for the forward group, but a simple Band-Aid would stem some of the bleed-out.
It’s also painfully obvious that the aforementioned key/core players have, for whatever reasons, submitted performances worthy of being on that make-believe shuttle down Route 95 to AHL Providence. Such wakeup calls no longer exist in the NHL.
By virtue of cap restrictions and negotiated contract perks, most veterans belong to a protected class, shielded from demotion and typically not able to be traded. It’s only pride and a coach’s willingness to restrict ice time that truly can motivate them.
As for those failing individual performances:
▪ Swayman. The true definition of an elite No. 1 stopper is … ? While numbers are important, the finer print comes down to whether he makes big, timely saves. We’re not seeing that from Swayman, now four weeks into his Franchise Stopper tenure.
Swayman was hardly the lone issue against the Hurricanes, but after Brad Marchand’s goal erased the early 1-0 deficit, they needed him to go Full Hasek on at least one of the shots that delivered three Carolina goals across 52 seconds by Andrei Svechnikov, Jackson Blake, and Martin Necas.
▪ McAvoy. The franchise defenseman opened the season by tallying five shots and two goals across the first two games. Looked like a new, bolder CM73. But here we are again, and the No. 1 point option on the power play has but 16 shots on net through 11 games.
That shot total ranked McAvoy T-48 among NHL backliners, including ex-Bruin Colin Miller, as of Friday morning. Miller normally skates third pairing for the Jets and averages 13:57 in ice time, compared with McAvoy’s 23:21. Miller also has a line of 2-3—5, not one of those points collected on the power play. Mercy.
Your point man has to shoot. Repeat, your point man HAS to shoot. Witness current shot totals for the top four point men: Roman Josi, 45; Dougie Hamilton, 44; Quinn Hughes, 34; Brandon Montour, 33.
▪ Coyle. Performed admirably last season, moving into top-six center role. Won 51.6 percent of his faceoffs, helped drive lines.
Thus far, he’s missing in action. Coyle has been hammered at the dot (42.3 percent) and his minus-9 is tied with Trent Frederic for worst in Black-and-Gold show. His goal at Colorado Oct. 16 stands as his lone point for the season. Montgomery has been trigger-happy
with mixing and matching centers and wingers; that hasn’t helped.
The place to begin a Coyle do-over would be his comfort spot, No. 3 center, and perhaps go with sophomore Matt Poitras as No. 2 pivot for 10-14 days, if he can bear the physical load. For the moment, Coyle is lost in space.
▪ Zadorov. The 6-foot-6-inch New Z
piled up penalty minutes out of the gate (at least two in each of the first seven games), and he at least has jumped off the express train to the sin bin. Super.
Signed for five years/$30 million in July, the towering Russian was hired on
to help apply a crusty veneer on a skilled, oft-soft backline. Thus far, he has displayed not nearly enough sandpaper, and his quick-decision game has been wanting.
He desperately needs to find a groove, deliver on his job definition, all perhaps to fall into place if he started landing some crushing “statement” hits. Those big bangs would be the equivalent of a No. 1 stopper making, say, a big timely save.
He has 32 hits, proof that he can land them, but he needs to launch a body or two to Palookaville as a way of getting the attention of opponents, and more important, the faith and confidence of his teammates.
Because what’s most obvious of all right now, everyone in those Black-and-Gold unis is in need of a wakeup call.
