NEW YORK — It’s November. So attaching too much significance to back-to-back Bruins losses would be a pretty obvious overaction.
But they’re not insignificant either. These were a pair of stinkers. The Bruins came out flat against the Red Wings, the only team to that point that had beaten them in regulation, on Friday. On Saturday, they were slow out of the gate against the Rangers, a rival, who was in first place in the Metro, the day after they should have learned a lesson about what happens when they start slowly. It’s worth noting too, that on Monday they lost a lead with five seconds left and lost in overtime to Tampa Bay.
This Boston team, which was expected to have scoring struggles while relying on goaltending and defense, gave up 12 goals in 28 hours.
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Surrounding a really good win over Florida on Wednesday were three losses, two full-fledged L’s, and one overtime defeat. It all comes on the heels of Milan Lucic’s domestic violence arrest that took a popular player and veteran presence off the team for at least the foreseeable future.
This is some real adversity. It’s not catastrophic adversity, but it’s more than the 2022-23 Bruins faced during the regular season, which left them ill-prepared when it arrived in the postseason.
This group isn’t the veteran-laden, leader-loaded squad of Patrice Bergeron, David Krejci and Nick Foligno from last year. It’s a team with a new captain in Brad Marchand, a lot of new players and returning players in bigger roles. How they respond sets a standard and a tone. There will be more tough stretches like this. How they react this time establishes some protocols.
“There’s always little challenges in a season. This is one of those,” Charlie Coyle said. “The great teams find a way to right the ship quicker than others. We have the team to do that.”
Are the 2023-24 Bruins a great team or have they just played great so far? It’s too early to tell. They’ve beat some very good teams and shown a lot of encouraging signs, but they’re still defining themselves. If they bounce back Monday and play well on the road against the Blue Jackets, it will give them confidence in themselves, their coaches and each other. If they don’t, the hole gets a little deeper.
Jim Montgomery said this group could use some consistent practice time together. He’s right, but they’re not going to get it for a while. They fly to Columbus for a game on Monday, they’re home on Thursday and then have another back-to-back on Saturday and Sunday. They won’t get three days without a game in a row until Dec. 4-6.
Until then, they’ve got to figure it out on the fly. The message Montgomery gave his team during the first-period timeout should be the same one they follow until they do have more time to work out any technical issues.
“We have to play north and we have to play simple and get to our identity which is a pretty good forechecking team and a team that can hang on to pucks,” he said.
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Marchand probably wasn’t workshopping his message to his teammates when he spoke to the media after the game, but it sounded like a good start if he was.
“It’s about showing up tomorrow and trying to bet better and making sure we all have our best efforts. The worst thing we could do is overthink the situation,” he said. “We’re obviously not happy about it, but we’re sitting in a good spot. We’ve been playing good hockey. It’s just about getting back to that.”
Follow MassLive sports columnist Matt Vautour on Twitter at @MattVautour424.
