BOSTON BRUINS QUOTES
Stanley Cup Playoffs – Round 1, Game 1
April 17, 2023
BOSTON BRUINS HEAD COACH JIM MONTGOMERY…
On the team’s mentality without Patrice Bergeron...
“Well, it speaks of the leadership underneath Patrice [Bergeron] and it also speaks to our depth. We’re very confident with [Pavel] Zacha in the middle and we know in the future he’s going to be an excellent top two center for us, and he showed that tonight.”
On Tyler Bertuzzi’s debut playoff performance...
“When we acquired him, we thought he was a guy that was made for the playoffs, and I thought his first shift, he laid out two huge hits and he just kept on making plays. The puck seems to follow him, and he makes plays and makes real good decisions with it.”
On the team’s play in the third period...
“Our third period was our best period of the game. I thought our first five, six minutes were good, but after we scored that power play goal we just, maybe we had two good shifts after it, then we kind of had a lull in our game. Give credit to Florida, because they started to really work us down low and their forecheck got high, and they went hard to our net.”
On the Charlie Coyle line...
“I mean, I think it’s hard to match up, that’s what it does for the other team. What it does for our team, it just gives us energy. Same thing with the [Tomas] Nosek line, they had some great shifts, and I know it was a disallowed goal, but that was an incredible shift and that’s the depth we have. I can move people around, have [Garnet] Hathaway, [Tomas] Nosek and [Charlie] Coyle go out there and kill a minute of three and a half minutes left in the game.”
On Linus Ullmark’s performance...
“I thought he was excellent. I thought he was cool, calm, just real confident, seeing the puck really well, steering rebounds. It looked like there was a lot of chaos at our net, they took a lot of shots at bad angles and he’s just great at steering pucks to bad areas or smothering them up. It really provides us a lot of confidence, allows us to control the chaos, so to speak.”
On his decision to put Derek Forbort in the lineup...
“Well Forbey’s [Derek Forbort] so good at a D-zone coverage and his penalty kill, and he showed that today, and down the stretch there with the last four to five minutes, he’s out there with [Brandon] Carlo killing a lot of important minutes for us, especially in a pulled-goalie situation.”
On the team’s adjustment to playoff hockey...
“I mean, results matter more than the process right now. Because our process, when we look at our five-on-five game, we’re not very happy with our process. So we can get better there, but the result was really good and I think the result comes from — we had some players play really well, especially our goaltender, and I think when you look at how we started the game, I really liked our first six minutes. But the intensity of Playoffs, it surprised us a little bit and I think we had a little bit of nerves.”
On the stretch after Brad Marchand’s goal…
“I think their forecheck has gotten better throughout the year, I think they are really committed to it, and I think that we didn’t handle that push great. But our goaltender did.”
On the team’s physicality...
“I think they targeted our top players and that’s what you expect in the playoffs. We had two power plays early, and it could’ve been more, and then obviously we took a couple later, but the intensity… I liked the way we responded to the intensity, you know? Especially in the third period.”
On Tyler Bertuzzi in front of the net…
“I mean, he has made his career in those areas in junior hockey and the American League. You know, he was MVP of the playoffs in the American League, and this is his first opportunity to play in the Stanley Cup Playoffs and I think you can see that he’s a playoff performer. And that play on the power play goal… His hockey sense, he has real elite poise in and around the net. A lot of guys would have taken that and tried to stuff it in the net on the back hand, and he just pops it over for an empty net goal.”
FLORIDA PANTHERS HEAD COACH PAUL MAURICE …
On the physicality of the game…
“I would say it was a reasonably physical game; I didn’t think it was an overly physical game for playoff hockey. I liked the front half of our game, even though we were down 2-0 at one point, probably better than the third. I think that we did some good things in the offensive zone. I think we gave up three of four solid chances off kind of aggressiveness and decision making, and I think we can fix that. I think that’s solvable for us, and then we will look at some places that we can probably execute a little better in terms of how we move the puck, but I think we’d given up 12 even-strength shots through two periods. There weren’t a lot of penalties in the game, so it’s going to be a five-on-five series, I think, based on how the first one was played. So, there was some good there.”
On the even-strength play…
“I didn’t feel that we had — there was one at the end of the third — but a tremendous amount of extended D-zone time at our end of the ice. We were able to battle some pucks out. I think both teams are probably going to look at that neutral zone and think for places they could’ve moved the puck a little bit differently. It got to ping pong for a little bit there in the neutral zone. We’ll get better every game.”
On Alex Lyon…
“He was just so good. That’s the game he’s played for us since he’s come in. His timing on those two-on-one plays and his reads have just been fantastic for us. He was good. He’ll want the second one back. I’m not measuring that as the tell of his game. We’ll measure the saves that he made and give him an A+ for his game tonight.”
On getting to the front of the net…
“I thought that was the strength of our game, especially in the first 30 minutes until it went 3-1. We were able to get some chaos in front of their net, and I thought our defense, especially early on, did a great job at getting pucks through and to the net. I think a few adjustments on our positioning there to give us just a chance to get to some more rebound chances and things, but that part was probably the strength of our game tonight.”
BOSTON BRUINS FORWARDS JAKE DEBRUSK AND BRAD MARCHAND
On starting playoffs without Bergeron…
Marchand: “Yeah, different for sure. But, the kind of last few years, we’ve had that next man up mentality, and Jake [DeBrusk] and Pav [Pavel Zacha] and I have spoken a lot this morning and yesterday about how we wanted to play and step it up. It’s just an opportunity whenever a guy goes down for someone else to step up and do great things. Pav did an incredible job; just ask Chris Kelly. No, but Pav had a great game. I liked how our line played and it’s definitely something we can build on.”
On Tyler Bertuzzi…
Marchand: “He did great. He’s a competitor, and he battles extremely hard. I don’t think there’s any question marks about him. He’s won in the past. He was incredible in the Calder run that they had in Detroit. He’s just one of those guys that you hate to play against. He brings it every night. His compete level is through the roof. So, a guy that you knew was going to show up and be a playoff-type player, but he had a great game. So, it was great to see.”
On his goal adage statistics…
Marchand: “You never know. Come playoff time, you never want to pass up a shot. That’s just kind of the way that playoffs work out. Sometimes those shots go in. Sometimes they don’t. But, nice to build off of.”
On Jake’s goal…
DeBrusk: “Yeah, it was just… it went low to high, and then I just tried to get to the net. Tried to fight for space, and I just saw the puck. I just saw the puck on his pad. I think I was getting checked, and I just tried to dive to get it, but I thought that if I, obviously, the pad of the goaltender is interference, so I was trying to go over top of it, and I saw it go in. I knew it was going to be kind of a close call. As soon as I saw the replay, I was happy I did what I wanted to do. But it was just getting pucks to the net and bodies there and never give up on a play. That’s kind of how playoffs are all about.”
On room for growth…
Marchand: “I think kind of all over. Typically, there’s always something you can take away from a game, and I don’t think we’ve ever been satisfied with any game we’ve had this year. But they’re a good team. We knew they were going to push hard, and they did. We started turning too many pucks over in the neutral zone, top of the circles, in the second period. Kind of got away from our game. We do a better job taking care of pucks. Playing down low, that’s kind of where we’ve thrived all year. Hopefully, that plays more into our hands. Something we’ll dissect a little bit more tomorrow and go through. Both teams are going to do that. Make changes. Chess match playoff time. We’ll take a look at what they did and where we can improve.”
On adjusting to playoff hockey…
Marchand: “It’s always good to start the first game with a win. We haven’t accomplished anything yet. Each game that goes on is harder and harder to win. They’re going to push back. All good teams do. They’ve got a lot of really good players in that group that are competitive. That second game is always a tough one. It’s always, again, it’s good to start the way that we did, but we can be better, and we need to be better because they’re going to come out really hard the next game, and we’ve got to be able to match that.”
DeBrusk: “Yeah, I think Marchy said it best.”
On Patrice Bergeron addressing the team before the game…
DeBrusk: “He was around. He was around all day and kind of talked to us before the game. He was watching here in the room. Obviously, such a presence. You can tell how bad he wants to be out there, and he can’t wait to get back in the mix. It’s one of those things where you can tell he’s itching to get back, and it’s one of those things that we take as a team, and it kind of gives you a boost seeing him around. It’s one of those things where we want to do it for him. That was the main goal at the start of the year, and I think it’s one of those things where we got off on the right foot tonight, but it’s really early.”
On feeling nervous tonight…
Marchand: “Yeah, definitely. I think everyone was nervous. I mean, I was nervous. I’m sure a lot of the guys were. This is what we’ve been building for all year. This is why you play hockey. It’s for an opportunity to be in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. It’s what we’ve dreamed about since we were kids. It’s only normal, I think, for guys to feel that way. It’s nervous excitement too. It’s an opportunity for us to just continue to build on what we’ve done all year and trust the process and trust what we’ve done and what we’ve built as a group. This is the best time to play hockey. The last month or so, when we started kind of locking things up in different positions. We’ve been waiting for this moment, and it was great that it was here. The building was exciting. The city was rocking today. I think it was normal for everybody to feel that way, but it’s always good to get that first one out of the way and now just focus on just building each day.”
BOSTON BRUINS GOALTENDER LINUS ULLMARK …
On how it felt to get his first playoff win…
“It was nice. Now we’ve just got to get 15 more.”
On what he liked about the team tonight…
“I think we handled the [penalty kill] pretty well. It’s kind of always been a strength of ours and something we can always build from, and guys stuck with it throughout 60 minutes.”
On if he could see the puck better as the game went on…
“Yeah. There’s always going to be instances where it’s tough to get a vision of it. It’s always like that in the playoffs. Just got to make the most of it.”
On if the Brandon Montour shot in the third period hit him in the head…
“I take a lot of hits to my head. It’s one of few things I’m pretty proud of that I can do. That one was like something in between.”
On when it was decided he could play tonight…
“Felt good. Felt terrific this morning, and once we did that, it was show time.”
On the energy in the building…
“It was great. It’s always fun when you get the roar there when you come out for warmups and then for the first period. It’s always great.”
On the jump to playoff hockey…
“We’ve always said that this is what we’re meant to do. This is the process that we’re talking about. We’ve been building for this for a long time, to really be prepared for when the puck gets dropped every period, every game. All those 82 games beforehand was just us trying to ramp it up, and this is the moment where you’ve got to build your game. You’re not going to win the Stanley Cup with just one win; you’ve got to keep doing it over and over and over again.”
On overcoming adversity…
“It’s all the trust we have for each other. We believe in ourselves; we believe in the depth that we have, the team that we have. It doesn’t matter who is out there; there’s always another guy who is able to step in and fill the shoes of it. Now, we’ve just got to keep it rolling here and bring those guys that are out back.”
On how different he felt this year versus Game 1 last year…
“Those questions are always hard, because you can’t really put a finger on it. It was nice to get the first game here at the Garden. It was a little bit more pleasant than starting away for your first one. So, yeah, I felt a little more comfortable playing in this one.”
BOSTON BRUINS DEFENSEMAN CHARLIE MCAVOY …
On winning Game 1…
“Good. Always good. It’s always good to throw the first punch. With that being said, it’s a long series. It’s good to get one out of the way, but you know with everything, everything changes. These games get a lot more movement as we go.”
On what he liked about his team tonight…
“I like that we won, and we didn’t really play, I think, to the best of our ability. I think that we’re going to keep building, get some pieces back. Whatever you want to call it. We know that we can keep building. We can find our playoff game, find the way that we want to dictate and play our game. There’s a lot to be encouraged of.”
On the mood in the room knowing Bergeron was out…
“The same as it’s been all year. Knowing that we trust in our depth and we trust in each other. That whoever’s going out there is going to get the job done. We believe in one another and we believe that whoever it is, they're going to help pull their weight.”
On Marchand’s goal and pass back…
“Yeah, he was able to trap a couple guys there with a pass and then, you know, just trying to transition quick and switch sides with the ice. It was a good shot by March to give him something hard to deal with.”
On their third period forecheck…
“Just trying to make smart plays. That’s it. I don’t want to talk about anything specific really, just trying to make smart plays and trusting in one another being in good spots.”
On the locker room and the message it sends…
“All year we’ve been an extremely tight group. I think today was a little bit of celebrating that and understanding what we’ve worked for all year and the journey starts today. Something good. Something good. It was emotional, we wanted to translate it on the ice.”
