Post-Game Talk: GAME 1 - Swampkittens 6 BRUINS 4

[KrejciMVP]

Bruins D unable to handle a strong forechecking team. No transition game to get the puck out of the zone

 

[Blowfish]

I panic big time if this team plays the same against the habitants. I can’t believe how incredibly slow this team looked.

 

[Alicat]

The Pasta hate is absolutely ridiculous. He was not the problem last night.

 

[Maine Fan]

Not sure if lying or just simply hasn't got a feel for this team. I do not understand him.

I agree with not understanding him. I posted that I am not a fan of Montgomery. I said I couldn't says why. Therefore my remarks about him are stupid. Another fan said he felt the same as me. Now you and I sort of agree. That is three knowledgeable NHL hockey fans that don't like Montgomery but can't explain why. Is that correct or are you in a different group? It must be the water he drinks.

 

[Beesfan]

Honestly, it looked a lot to me like the Florida-Boston series last Spring, minus Swayman bailing the Bruins out of 3 goals. The Bruins don't the forward fire-power to put pressure on the Panthers so they mostly play the game in their own end.

The Panthers are a pretty unique team right now. They have incredible depth of star power and they play as a team. The second level guys are pretty good too. This Florida team is as good or better then the Lightning dynasty of a few years ago.

I'm not going to draw too many conclusions from this game. We played the best team in the league on the road on banner night. Let's see how the next 3 games go.

 

[NDiesel]

I panic big time if this team plays the same against the habitants. I can’t believe how incredibly slow this team looked.

I'll give em a couple weeks, but yeah they looked very slow

 

[Terrier]

 

[rfournier103]

Well, I guess 82-0 is off the table.

We’re on to Montreal.

 

[DaBroons]

They looked like they quit after the first period.

Embarrassing.

They couldn't even figure out how to start a 'clean' scrum.

What do you mean by "after" the first period? They trailed 4-1 at that point. They quit before the national anthem was over.

Well that was disappointing on many levels. No excuse for a veteran team to come out that flat against a team that they know so well too. That's all on the coach.

I thought we were supposed to have gotten big and tough? Mean even. For the most part we just looked slow and stupid.

Florida, game 1, and they are already in their heads. How many times do you do the same thing and what, expect a different result? You DO NOT engage with Tkachuk, you DO NOT chase him around and push and shove. He will goad you and get the better of you every time and the refs will call it as if he's an innocent victim. THEY KNOW THIS. Either punch him in the head or skate away and ignore him.
Meanwhile Bennett gets to intentionally run over our goalie and gets a little 2 minutes for that. Nothing happens to him. Now imagine if that was Swayman in there and he concussed him and he missed the next 20 games, then what? Oh I know, we will get them next time.

This team will not and cannot get past Florida if they even make the playoffs. Next to no chance at all.
I don't know what he was like in Anaheim but really not impressed with Jones. Dumb penalties, dumb plays, zero impact. Why did we sign him? He was garbage.

Freddy was decent but man, as a team they stunk tonight.

It is NOT on the coach to motivate the players; it is on the players to motivate themselves.

What IS on the coach is the lack of pre-season playing time by the top players. They hardly played at all.

 

[Alicat]

One game and you’d think they lost in game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals. Get a god damn grip people.

It’s not where you start but where you finish.
It’s not how you go but how you land.

 

[NDiesel]

It is NOT on the coach; it is on the players.

I don't know about that anymore, how many times in Montys stint here has this team come out flat for 20 to 40 minutes and then turned it on?

I have liked him so far, but I'm beginning to wonder about him as a head coach....

 

[nORRis8]

Bruins D unable to handle a strong forechecking team. No transition game to get the puck out of the zone

The thing that bothers me is that Monty has no answer for when Florida turns it up.
It reminds me of Cherry vs Scotty Bowman in the 70's. Cherry never could find the right answer in beating the Habs in the playoffs. Always a step behind especially with games at the old Forum.

And another thing.....
ESPN's broadcast was horrible. Stick with college ball.
Yes I do want to see replays of penalties. Some of the calls last night the broadcast crew couldn't figure out who a penalty was for. Neither did we. Then show the #&%*% replay.

 

[DKH]

Florida basically handed them a manual of what you need to improve on

They should send then an edible arrangement

Let’s see if they can iron out a lot

Remember - Montour, Cousins, and Lomberg are gone. They are a Tkachuk-Bennett production and not really a dirty group otherwise

 

[Gee Wally]

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/10/08/sports/bruins-panthers-season-opener/

SUNRISE, Fla. — The Panthers ran their Stanley Cup banner to the Amerant Bank Arena rafters Tuesday night and then promptly ran the Bruins right out of the rink.

Boston looked a day late and a dollar short for long stretches of its 6-4 opening-night loss to Florida in a game that wasn’t close to being that close.

The Bruins scored a pair of late goals to cloud the competitiveness of this one.
Unable to consistently generate chances early, the Bruins fell behind early and then got lost in a fog of Florida’s ferocious

“Their execution was really good. Our execution was really poor,” said Bruins coach Jim Montgomery. “I can’t pinpoint why we looked slow, but we looked slow the entire game, not just the first 10 minutes, in my opinion.”

Making his first start with the Bruins, Joonas Korpisalo (29 saves) was peppered with shots early and then physically pummeled later when Sam Bennett ran him over after Florida’s final goal.

• “Korpisalo was not a problem tonight. It was the people in front of him. You can’t give up four backdoor tap-ins and expect your goalie to make save after save,” said Montgomery. “He made a lot of saves on breakaways. He was good tonight. The players in front of him, the rest of the team, and the coaching staff. We weren’t good enough.”

Korpisalo was under siege almost immediately and he held up well for the first five minutes, making a big right pad save on Carter Verhaeghe after a sloppy giveaway at center ice while the Bruins were changing. He denied Verhaeghe on the doorstep moments later.

The Bruins, meanwhile, didn’t land a shot on Sergei Bobrovsky until five minutes had elapsed.

The first fisticuffs of the season came when Mark Kastelic dropped ‘em with ex-Bruin A.J. Greer, who had taken exception to Kastelic’s hit on another ex-Bruin, Jesper Boqvist.

Greer rapped his stick on Kastelic’s legs and the two went at it, exchanging a couple of nice blows. Greer, mysteriously, escaped an instigator minor.

Trent Frederic tried to spark his mates by challenging Matthew Tkachuk, but the Panther wouldn’t oblige — just like last season’s playoffs — and Frederic was hit with an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty.

Tkachuk’s unwillingness to match up surprised Frederic.

“He said yeah, and he didn’t [drop his gloves], so it’s kind of hard when someone says, yeah,” said Frederic. “He actually asked me because I was asking him and then he didn’t, so it’s hard to read that.”

“I mean, the game was 4-1 after first, so not too happy with that,” said Korpisalo. “A couple weird bounces. Four go in in one period. It doesn’t matter how many shots you got there. It’s pretty tough to climb back there.”

The Bruins showed a little life as the second opened but couldn’t cash in on their chances.

The Panthers upped the advantage to 5-1 and this time it wasn’t the usual suspects. The fresh faces got involved.

Following another sloppy center ice exchange, Boqvist bolted down the left side before saucering a cross-slot pass to Jonah Gadjovich, who banged it home.

Shortly after the goal the Panther crowd started a “We want Swayman” chant. They weren’t getting Boston’s $66 million man on this night.

Almost as if he was responding to them, Korpisalo made his best save of the night, denying Aleksander Barkov on a breakaway with a nice flash of the right pad.

Boston got it to 5-2 when Bobrovsky couldn’t cleanly glove Johnny Beecher’s snapper and McAvoy zipped home the rebound.

Things got ugly (and a little dangerous) when Max Jones was slashed by Evan Rodrigues and when Jones went to return the favor, he instead caught linesman Devin Berg. Jones was sent off for unsportsmanlike conduct.

Rodrigues scored to make it 6-2 with Bennett barreling over Korpisalo a split second after the puck went in. The hit set off a mini melee that resulted in a Boston power play.

Frederic and David Pastrnak scored in the last four minutes to pull the Bruins within two goals. That late surge was a silver lining to Frederic.

“I thought a positive there is we kept pushing back and I think we just ran out of time, and we’ll get them in the next week or so,” Frederic said of the upcoming Columbus Day matinee rematch. “I think it’s good. I mean, it’ll be fun at our rink.”

 

[Over the volcano]

The thing that bothers me is that Monty has no answer for when Florida turns it up.
It reminds me of Cherry vs Scotty Bowman in the 70's. Cherry never could find the right answer in beating the Habs in the playoffs. Always a step behind especially with games at the old Forum.

And another thing.....
ESPN's broadcast was horrible. Stick with college ball.
Yes I do want to see replays of penalties. Some of the calls last night the broadcast crew couldn't figure out who a penalty was for. Neither did we. Then show the #&%*% replay.

In fairness this was true of the entire league last year. FLA might have the best top 9 again

 

[ae530]

One game but it was ugly.
Korpisalo and the entire defense were all mostly terrible.
Elias and Freddy were OK. Zacha scored a goal I guess.



I don't really know what the alternative is. Not being a top flight contender isn't a good enough reason to throw in the towel and suck on purpose. They have Pasta, McAvoy, and now Swayman signed through their primes. If a young C with top line upside hits the market for some reason Sweeney had better move heaven and earth to acquire him.

 

[Gee Wally]

What do you mean by "after" the first period? They trailed 4-1 at that point. They quit before the national anthem was over.


It is NOT on the coach to motivate the players; it is on the players to motivate themselves.

What IS on the coach is the lack of pre-season playing time by the top players. They hardly played at all.

Im not buying its Monty for lack of physical response.

To me when Korpi was run it should be instinctively responded to. No matter what. You just go. Emotion alone should have kicked in and someone snap.

 

[KillerMillerTime]

Honestly, it looked a lot to me like the Florida-Boston series last Spring, minus Swayman bailing the Bruins out of 3 goals. The Bruins don't the forward fire-power to put pressure on the Panthers so they mostly play the game in their own end.

The Panthers are a pretty unique team right now. They have incredible depth of star power and they play as a team. The second level guys are pretty good too. This Florida team is as good or better then the Lightning dynasty of a few years ago.

I'm not going to draw too many conclusions from this game. We played the best team in the league on the road on banner night. Let's see how the next 3 games go.

Florida is really good but I take the '20-'22 Lightning based on Vasi, Hedman being better than Bob, Forsling or Ekblad.

 

[Ned Bouhalassa]

Man, that was a silly game! So, when does the season start again?

Oh…

 

[yazmybaby]

Florida basically handed them a manual of what you need to improve on

They should send then an edible arrangement

Let’s see if they can iron out a lot

Remember - Montour, Cousins, and Lomberg are gone. They are a Tkachuk-Bennett production and not really a dirty group otherwise

Ekman Larson was an important part of the dee as well.
It's only one game, we have lots of time to improve.
Our PK looked great.
We have 5 new players on this team, not including Korpi.
Having Poitras in the lineup will help.
I still hoping we can figure out a way to sign Johnson.

 

[ae530]

I panic big time if this team plays the same against the habitants. I can’t believe how incredibly slow this team looked.

Not in game shape. Monty is too easy on these guys

 

[DKH]

I don't know about that anymore, how many times in Montys stint here has this team come out flat for 20 to 40 minutes and then turned it on?

I have liked him so far, but I'm beginning to wonder about him as a head coach....

The Panthers came out attacking and putting pressure on the Bruins defense but they were doing this with probably the best top 9 in hockey

The Bruins were reactionists ~ they weren’t skating and slow decision-making

 

[ae530]

Definitely not going to overreact to one game, but the way they came out at least raises an eyebrow.

Thursday at home should be a layup opportunity to get the train on the tracks.

They come out flat at home in the opener against the Canadiens and that’s something worthy of real concern.

Agreed

 

[LouJersey]

The Pasta hate is absolutely ridiculous. He was not the problem last night.

Honestly without him they would be a 6-10 seed

In fairness this was true of the entire league last year. FLA might have the best top 9 again

gotta hope they show their age quickly because they are all locked up for a long time.

 

[DKH]

Ekman Larson was an important part of the dee as well.
It's only one game, we have lots of time to improve.
Our PK looked great.
We have 5 new players on this team, not including Korpi.
Having Poitras in the lineup will help.
I still hoping we can figure out a way to sign Johnson.

The next 3 home games will be a good measurement ~ they probably get a good practice in Friday and even Sunday morning since they play afternoon games around that