BOSTON — The Bruins players keep emphasizing that they aren’t panicking.
After Saturday’s lackluster 3-2 overtime loss to a mediocre Blues team at TD Garden, they said they are fully confident that it’s a frustrating stretch that they’ll eventually get past.
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“We have to grind through it. We have to take responsibility and hold ourselves accountable and each other accountable. These little pockets happen every year. Good teams find a way to put a stop to it quicker than other teams,” Charlie Coyle said. “We have to really buy in on playing a simple style of hockey. Focus on our compete, our work and being tight on everything. We get out of these funks together. It’s just a commitment and the trust to do it over and over again until things start to roll and they will.”
Coyle’s confidence is reflective of what his teammates have been saying for weeks and it sounds reassuring. They all keep expressing that the clouds are going to clear and eventually, everything is going to be all right.
But they’re not waiting out a rainstorm. For things to get right, the Bruins have to make it so. They don’t need soft music and lavender. They need a fire lit underneath them. Overreacting might be a step too far. But this group is underreacting and could use some anger.
Boston’s lack of emotion is a problem not a silver lining. Their urgency hasn’t come anywhere close to matching their talent.
At the end of Tuesday’s win over the Blues in St. Louis, Montgomery said David Pastrnak and Charlie McAvoy weren’t going to let the Bruins lose that night. And he was right. The guys who were supposed to be their best players played like it and dragged everyone else along with them. They way they won sparked a lot of optimism about the potential for a turnaround.
But after a solid first period against the Stars on Thursday, the Bruins unraveled and got embarrassed in Dallas. In other years, that loss would have had them motivated and ready for Saturday. Instead, they erased Tuesday’s optimism and slid further back.
“There’s obviously some frustration with the team not having the year we thought or have had in the past,” said Frederic, who had his best game of the season with two goals on Saturday. “But we could turn it around at any second. It’s not going to take much. We’re not that far away.”
If he’s right, that almost makes it worse. Losing while skating hard would be more palatable. But on too many shifts it looks like they’re going through the motions. Jim Montgomery, whose job security likely hangs in the balance, couldn’t put his finger on the issue.
“We didn’t have a lot of juice in the tank. I don’t know why we didn’t,” Montgomery said. “We had legs in the first and kind of fell off after that. … It’s about people making reads and skating. It comes down to skating and working.”
Montgomery has benched David Pastrnak. He berated Brad Marchand on the bench. He’s shuffled the lines, reshuffled the lines and then tossed them in the blender. Things work for a period and sometimes a game, but they always go back to playing flat.
“You can’t plan for lack of juice. We get to play in the greatest league in the world,” he said. “The excitement should come from within each individual when we go out and play in front of our great fans.”
The Bruins haven’t scored enough to hide their defensive deficiencies and haven’t defended well enough to counteract their inability to create chances or even shots on goal. They haven’t been fast enough. They haven’t been physical enough and they haven’t been good enough.
While the fourth line was terrific early, it has reverted to the mean. Of the players who played Saturday, exactly one has outperformed expectations this year – Joonas Korpisalo and he’s only played six games.
If the Bruins don’t get things together quickly it could cost Montgomery his job and put them at risk of missing the playoffs and make the Bruins sellers at the trade deadline.
The season isn’t that young anymore. The time to actually panic isn’t far off.
Follow MassLive sports columnist Matt Vautour on Twitter at @MattVautour424.
