Bruins bounce back in Sacco’s first win, but can they gain consistency? originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston
BOSTON — The Bruins received a wake-up call earlier this week when management decided to Fire Chief Coach Jim Montgomery after an 8-9-3 start to the season, and the players responded with a strong performance Thursday night against the Utah Hockey Club.
The Bruins secured a hard-fought 1-0 victory at TD Garden, giving Joe Sacco his first victory as interim head coach.
The B’s showed improvement in several key areas, including special teams.
The power play opened Thursday with a league-worst 11.7 percent success rate. This unit moved the puck better, consistently created scoring chances and found the back of the net when Elias Lindholm scored his first goal in 18 games. Boston’s power play was 1 for 7 overall, but it had 18 shots, 10 scoring chances and six high-danger chances. There was an energy and liveliness that previous games lacked.
The penalty kill also stepped up with a perfect 4-for-4 performance, including a stunning win late in the third period in which the Bruins didn’t allow a single shot to Utah’s power play while protecting a 1-0 lead. Boston’s penalty kill ranked 25th in the league heading into this game.
The Bruins also appear to be a shot-count team under Sacco. They were more of a quality shooting group with Montgomery, but with a team so desperate to score — they rank 31st in goals scored per game — shooting as many pucks on goal as possible is the right approach for this lineup. The Bruins finished with 31 shots against Utah – only the sixth time they have totaled more than 30 shots in a game this season.
While this win is certainly a step in the right direction, it won’t matter much if the Bruins don’t build on it and establish some consistency in how they play and win games . We’ve seen the Bruins bounce back from poor performances multiple times this season, only to see that momentum destroyed by more brutal defeats.
For example, the Bruins lost 8-2 on the road to the Carolina Hurricanes on Halloween to fall to 4-6-1. They recovered with consecutive shutout victories against the Philadelphia Flyers and Seattle Kraken the following weekend. It looked like the B’s had turned a corner, but they went to Toronto two days later and lost 4-0 to the Leafs.
The Bruins lost 3-2 in an ugly game against the Ottawa Senators on November 9. They led 2-0 early in the third period in the next game against the St. Louis Blues, then scored three unanswered goals to their first comeback victory in the third period of the campaign. That result in St. Louis looked like a season-changing victory, but it ended up being Montgomery’s final victory behind the bench as Boston lost its next three games.
The “one step forward, two steps back” trend needs to reverse for the Bruins if they want to start climbing the standings and living up to their potential. The B’s are 2-3-2 after one win this season, and they have yet to win more than two games in a row.
How do the Bruins build on Thursday’s win?
“Just details and habits,” Sacco said after the match. “Make sure tomorrow in practice we are ready to play. It’s a game. We have a long way to go. Focus on tomorrow’s practice and make sure our habits are good and that we cover all the details that we want to, I think that’s something to build on right now.”
Bruins captain Brad Marchand also spoke about practice when asked how the team can build momentum and string together some wins.
“Practice habits are where you develop all your playing habits,” Marchand said after the game. “It’s so cliché, but you train the way you play. When you practice bad, you play bad. When we compete in practice and we have a high tempo and we’re crisp and detailed, playing straight towards the net and shredding pucks, it translates into the game. It’s all dynamic.
“You have a bad practice, that momentum carries over into the game as well. You want to see it in the game, but I want to see it more in practice every day. That’s where you build your consistency and your competition . You build it in practice, we show it in games.”
The upcoming schedule should help the Bruins rack up some much-needed points in the standings.
The next eight games will all be against teams outside of a playoff spot at the moment, and five of those matchups will be at home. This is an important step for the Bruins to build good habits, continue to improve in areas like special teams and 5-on-5 scoring, and get their season back on track.
Even though the Bruins have performed well below expectations thus far, they are still tied with the Buffalo Sabers for second place in the Eastern Conference playoffs with 61 games remaining.
This win against Utah was a step in the right direction. Maintaining momentum is the next challenge.
