Boston has been one of the best and most consistent teams in the NHL for well over a decade. How the heck do they still keep it going?
It feels like for the better part of the past few years we’ve collectively been waiting for the Boston Bruins to take a turn for the worse and begin their inevitable fall back to the pack in the NHL.
When you comb over their history of whether they’ve made the playoffs or not, they’re a franchise that doesn’t go on extended droughts. After a year or two of being out of the postseason, they come back and seem to stay there for years to come as a perpetual threat to win the Stanley Cup.
The Bruins’ last playoff hiatus lasted two years under Claude Julien in 2014-2015 and 2015-2016 and a mediocre first half the following season led to Julien’s dismissal and Bruce Cassidy’s return to the coaching ranks and, not coincidentally, the build-up for the Bruins most recent Stanley Cup Final appearance in 2019.
It took a first-round loss in 2022 to get Cassidy removed as coach and replaced by Jim Montgomery who promptly led Boston to the Presidents’ Trophy before a sudden first-round playoff eviction at the hands of the Florida Panthers. That loss wound up being the final appearances in black and gold from captain and universally revered star center Patrice Bergeron as well as No. 2 pivot David Krejci.
Surely this would be the start of the Bruins downfall, right? Of course not.
The Bruins are again among the ranks of the best teams in the NHL although they arrived in Buffalo after Christmas riding a four-game losing streak going 0-2-2 during the stretch. For most teams, a losing streak of that magnitude would lead to numerous questions and bubbling crises across the roster. Instead, riding a skid like this into a league-wide break offered the opportunity for the league’s most mature and professionally operated dressing rooms to reflect and get to the heart of the matter before things get the chance to bubble over.
“What allows (a break) is Santa Claus allows it,” Montgomery said Wednesday morning. “It’s magical when your kids still believe in Santa Claus and you see their eyes in the morning, so that was awesome and that allows you to get away from it. I personally got away from it the 24th and 25th. The night of the 25th, my brain started going that way and yesterday I jumped on the phone. I talked to players, I talked to coaches, obviously I talk to (Bruins GM Don Sweeney) every day and then talk to some people outside of our team just to get a feel, like different people in the league who have gone through coaches and why they’ve done well and what the messaging has been. Obviously, I don’t hope that happens here, we want to avoid that, so what’s the messaging, what makes it go again, whether you’re in Minnesota or St. Louis or whatever the case.”
The content below was originally paywalled.
It’s an interesting peek into what a team at the top does to find way to shake off the bad vibes. Montgomery said they want to get back to playing “Bruins hockey” which by this point we should all be well aware of what that is. For Montgomery, that means trying to get the puck back fast, he says within five seconds of losing it. When they’ve got the puck that means getting it to the areas where they’ve got support and making the plays that lean into that. It sounds basic when he describes it, but when a team is on top of their game, you know it when you see it and the Bruins have not been there the past few games.
But what does that mean for those going up against the Bruins and trying to beat them knowing full well how good they are, how good they have been, and how good they can be when they’re playing on a full tank of energy, motivation, and skill?
“They’re waiting for us to make mistakes,” Sabres defenseman Rasmus Dahlin said. “They’re a very structured team, they play very good hockey…The challenge for us is to take care of the puck, make the correct decisions and play for 60 minutes.”
The Sabres are all too familiar with what it means to deal with struggles this season. Their up-and-down play from game to game has been, at times, maddening for players, coaches, and fans alike, but Buffalo has often played their best games against the best teams. When it comes to dealing with teams that produce an elite challenge by merely stepping on the ice, it requires a fair bit more focus to make sure they don’t get walked off the ice.
“It’s the mental side for us,” Dahlin said. “Not get frustrated even if it’s a 0-0 game until there’s 10 minutes left in the game. Just keep doing the right things and good things will happen because we have all the skills in the world. Just don’t get frustrated because it’s a game of mistakes.”
The Sabres youth often comes into play when it comes to having that sort of patience to deal with a team that’s not letting them play the way they want to play. Buffalo wants to play with speed and create off the rush and be creative with the puck at all turns. The Bruins’ commitment to playing so-called “hard hockey” is part of their reputation. They finish checks, they play fast when they’re rolling, and their ability to counter-attack is second to none.
Even though the Bruins’ history makes you think of legendary hard-hitters and roughnecks alike, “Bruins hockey” in this iteration of it comes from anyone in the lineup from David Pastrnak on down.
“Patient teams wait for you to make a mistake and most of the time you make it with the puck,” Sabres coach Don Granato said. “It’s hard to defend one or two seconds right after a turnover. You thought you were on offense and three or four other guys who didn’t have the puck are going and thinking offense and then it’s a turnover. Really, it’s not a defensive breakdown, it’s an offensive breakdown. We want to avoid those against anybody. The other night, (Artemi) Panarin and (Mika) Zibanejad, they’re lurking for those. They feed off of mistakes. It’s no different tonight, it’s no different any night in this league.”
Forcing plays when they’re not there is something that can happen to any team, but not every team has made it a lasting legacy to make sure those mistakes turn painful immediately the way the Bruins have.
Bruins forward James van Riemsdyk has seen almost all the ways to beat Boston as well as lose in excruciating fashion. In his rookie season of 2010, his Philadelphia Flyers came back from a 3-0 series deficit to beat the Bruins in the second round of the playoffs. Then there was 2013 with the Toronto Maple Leafs in which the Leafs came back from a 3-1 series hole but squandered a 4-1 third period lead in the final 11 minutes of Game 7 and lost 5-4 in overtime.
Van Riemsdyk joining the Bruins after so many seasons of battles against them offered the opportunity to see how the other half lives.
“Going against them, pretty much every year I’ve been in the league, they’ve been right there every year as a contending team that’s trying to go for it every year,” van Riemsdyk said. “Just looking from afar, it just seemed like a good culture to be a part of and trying to do things the right way. It just seemed it was always about the hockey with the guys and a lot of them really care about their craft and they’re wanting to get better.
“Just being exposed to some of those guys at training things I’ve been to over the years, so in that way it was fun to want to be a part of it, especially going into free agency, I thought I could be a good complement and a fit for my style of play with what the team had here with tons of great players and thought I could come in and fill a role too.”
That organizational approach and attitude within the room is what made it “easier” to attract veteran free agents this summer despite the Bruins lack of salary cap space. Signing for a million a year on a team that may not be a contender could turn a season into a slog, but in Boston it means being part of a group that’s there to win and be among the best in the NHL.
Losing Bergeron and Krejci could’ve meant the bell began tolling for the Bruins, instead David Pastrnak has taken charge as one of the league’s elite scorers and despite being hated in 31 other NHL cities, Brad Marchand has embraced the role as team captain. Maintaining a core of players over years helps make it easier to weather departures as big as those, but it’s the attitude and the culture that helps them continue to be The Bruins…much to everyone else’s dismay. As much of that is about the long view on things, it’s also about making sure to not let the short-term hiccups turn into a wasteland of pessimism.
“I think the reset for me, mentally, was really refreshing,” Montgomery said. “I was caught, I think, in a negative mindset there by the end of our stretch and I think at home with time off it allows you to take a breath and realize what makes your team successful and what makes yourself successful most importantly.”