BOSTON — Professional sports teams will make use of anything, from rally caps and dugout dances to players-only meetings and one-night stays in fancy hometown hotels, if it’ll provide a burst of energy and hopefully a change in momentum.
The Bruins have already tried the hotel trick and it worked quite nicely: After staying overnight in a Boston hotel last week in the run-up to playing the Toronto Maple Leafs in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference quarterfinals at TD Garden, the B’s emerged with a thrilling overtime victory.
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Now the Bruins are looking at two straight embarrassing blowout losses to the Florida Panthers in the Eastern Conference semifinals. One of them took place in Sunrise, Fla., Wednesday night. The latest assault on their dignity was the 6-2 shellacking they received in Game 3 Friday night at the Garden.
What to do now to change things up? Here’s what the Bruins are reaching for next, change-in-momentum-wise, going into Sunday night’s Game 4: The satisfaction and confidence building of being able to lift themselves up, dust themselves off, and manage to make things interesting in the third period of Game 3.
JD gets us another. pic.twitter.com/s1nUfmM5UU
— Boston Bruins (@NHLBruins) May 11, 2024
For some of the third period, anyway. The Panthers increased their lead to 4-0 on a Brandon Montour goal — making it 10 straight Florida goals in the series! — but then the Bruins scored a pair of goals to make it 4-2. And then the Panthers scored an empty-net goal at 18:36, followed by a power-play goal at 19:09. But wait! The Bruins were all over Florida goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky in the last couple of minutes, suggesting that maybe, if you squint your eyes and look past the bad stuff, there’s something to build on for Game 4.
Part of that third-period uptick in emotion, Bruins coach Jim Montgomery believes, is that some of his players took it upon themselves to do something, anything, to make up for the loss of B’s captain Brad Marchand, who suffered an upper-body injury and missed the entire third period.
“I thought we rallied because of our captain,” Montgomery said. “I thought that Pasta (David Pastrnak) and Charlie McAvoy did a great job with him not being on the bench, and I thought our players all elevated and we started competing like Brad Marchand would.”
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Montgomery’s players seemed to agree with this assessment.
Missing Marchand “was definitely huge,” Brandon Carlo said, “but I will credit Pasta, Charlie, a lot of guys, for stepping up and being vocal in that third period.”
Swayman noted the way the Bruins “responded without Marchy, and I think we can build our game off that. I’m looking forward to evening the series in our next game.”
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Jake DeBrusk put it this way: “I think we played with desperation and I think Marchy always does. Obviously, at that point, we needed to try and come back in the game, and I think (Montgomery) hit it on the head.
“But I think we needed that for a 60-minute effort,” DeBrusk said, hitting it on the head himself.
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The Bruins offered no update on Marchand’s status, though DeBrusk offered that “he’s probably the toughest guy I know, so I don’t doubt he’ll do anything he can to get back in there as soon as possible.”
These are tough times for the Bruins. Their offense has been stagnant over the past two genes, the mistakes have been many, and Swayman can’t single-handedly goal-tend the Bruins to the next round.
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It’s going to take more than they-played-tough-in-the-third-period-because-that’s-what-Marchy-does to get it done. Oh, to be sure, that sounds great in meetings, and it’s must-see TV when it’s said in postgame locker room gabfests with sportswriters, but the Bruins need to come up with something beyond the desperation they showed in the third period.
Yes, an optimist could take one unfortunate second-period penalty and roll out the usual noise that if it didn’t happen things might have been different. Except that it did happen. Defenseman Mason Lohrei was assessed a double minor on a high stick to the face of the Panthers’ Steve Lorentz, and Florida promptly capitalized on power-play goals by Vladimir Tarasenko and Carter Verhaeghe.
On several occasions after the game, Montgomery chose to fall on his coaching sword — “It’s on me,” he offered — when asked what went wrong. When asked what he meant by that — Did he not get his players mentally prepared? Did he not come up with the right game plan? — the coach threw it out to the audience.
“Whichever way you want to take it,” he said. “It’s not good enough. We didn’t play good enough. That’s why I take the responsibility.”
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Changes for Game 4?
“It’s too early to be able to talk about changes,” Montgomery said. “We have to do our due diligence, and look at the game again, and see who is executing, and who’s playing with the effort that you (media people) have asked about.”
So it’s a kinda, sorta, blink-if-you-miss-it third-period momentum change the Bruins hope to take into Game 4.
But, then, there’s not much else. The Bruins are still showing a reticence to put the puck on net, as evidenced by being outshot 13-3 in the first period. They’re still turning the puck over.
The Bruins need to do something. For now, though, in the absence of any fresh, new ideas, they’re taking the third period of Game 3 into the first period of Game 4 and hoping for the best.
(Photo of Sam Bennett checking Brad Marchand: Michael Dwyer / Associated Press)