This team ALLEGEDLY was built for it this time around. The size, the alleged attitude and mentality for playing a rough, tough, physical style.
False. Disappointed. A team of Wheelers and Bitzs is not going to be enough unless we play Toronto yet again.
Montgomery needs to clone the Florida coaching strategy and allow the players to be the hammer not the nail.
Frederic was the most invisible Bruin today. Was he warned by the Bruins or the NHL to not repeat game 1? Leaning Bruins management at this point.
Since Claude left the Bruins have taken more pride in turning the other cheek than defending and message sending.
As I’ve said before, the challenge here for the Bruins is we’re asking them to play a different way, both tactically and in terms of their general mentality and approach, than they have the last few years. This has been a pass and playmaking team with only a limited physical aspect for quite some time. They traditionally haven’t had a very strong forecheck either. Now the roster has changed. There is less outright skill in the top 6, less experience, not much raw speed. The roster as a whole, and especially the defense, is bigger. Theoretically they should be leaning more into dump and chase, forechecking hard, ‘pounding’ bodies, as Maurice might say, at both ends to retrieve pucks. Fairly simple but hard-nosed north-south hockey, while still providing some space for skill and creativity from the likes of Pasta, Lindholm and Poitras.
But all this has to be learned. It takes time, and commitment, as the Panthers themselves could attest. Guys like Zadorov can give you some of the means, and an example to follow, but the whole team has to adjust and buy in to playing a certain way to really get anywhere. Once they work out what they way actually is. Monty talks a lot about wanting to win battles, be hard on pucks, effort, second effort and so on. And that’s all well and good and important. But what are their tactics more broadly? Beyond those sheer basics, by what methods do they want to beat opposing teams and play to the strengths of this roster? Do they really want to lean into playing heavy and with more aggression, or not? And so on. I don’t think it’s clear yet exactly what they want their identity to be.
I remember David Backes telling the story of how he allegedly asked Cassidy at one point to allow his line to play more of a dump and chase style, because he felt it would better suit his line and his own personal strengths. And Bruce, in simple terms, turned him down. He was a skate the puck in-style coach, at least at the time, and was sticking to it. Whether Cassidy was right or wrong, the point is that coaches have their ways and their preferences, and tend not to change easily. Can Monty coach this type of roster effectively? The Dallas team he coached was pretty heavy and gritty, so maybe. But really, we don’t know yet.