BOSTON — Inside the Boston Bruins dressing room these days, the players are saying all the things they want to believe and that fans want to hear.
Glass half-full quotes such as “we’re not that far away”, “we’ll be better”, “we pushed back”, “support all over” and the always-popular “team culture” have Boston believing their woes of the season’s first month-and-a-half will be a thing of the past before we know it.
But will it? Have they shown enough signs that this is possible, or were our expectations of this squad perhaps unrealistic?
The same record keeps playing, but the songs aren’t changing. Saturday’s disappointing 3-2 overtime loss at TD Garden to the St. Louis Blues was just another example in what’s becoming more of a pattern than an infrequency.
Boston came out like gangbusters for this matinee contest. Trent Frederic, who had just one goal in the team’s first 18 games and was a minus-12, scored twice in tight in the first period in what coach Jim Montgomery called “the third circle”. That, he said, is that smaller ring of space in front of net between the two faceoff circles where many goals are scored.
But the wheels came off this 1984 Chevette soon after. The Blues found their legs in the middle stanza and carried the play, playing Jake Paul to Boston’s Mike Tyson. They kept it up in the third, tied the game with a little over 10 minutes left, then won it in extra time when Brayden Schenn beat goalie Joonas Korpisalo cleanly with a wrister from the left wing boards.
It was the first of a five-home-dates-in-a-six-game stretch between Saturday and the day after Thanksgiving. So for a team that’s been desolate far too often this fall, dropping to 8-8-3 on the season was another major disappointment in what’s becoming a season of them.
Montgomery couldn’t figure out why his players “didn’t have a lot of juice in the tank.” Consistency, puck pressure and puck management, he said, is something that hasn’t been apparent on a consistent basis.
His Bruins had just 17 shots on Blues goalie Jordan Binnington Saturday, didn’t seem to have the same desire to win loose pucks, and gave away what he felt should’ve been two points.
Panic has not set in the room. Not yet.
“You know we’re going to get out of it; these little funks, they happen every year,” said center Charlie Coyle. “Good teams find ways to put a stop to it quicker than other teams. But it takes everyone. I think we have to really, really really need to buy in on playing a simple style of hockey. I know it’s a cliché, but it works. It works for the way we play.”
“We’re trying to be positive,” added Frederic. “Guys are trying to have fun at the rink; our staff does a good job with that.
“There’s obviously some frustration; the team isn’t having the year we predicted or thought we’d done in the past. But we can turn it around any second. It’s not going to take much; we’re not that far away.”
Now is as good a time as any if the Bruins are going to suddenly flip the script, start supporting each other on the ice and taking accountability for their own actions. Columbus and Utah are in town this Monday and Thursday before a road date in Detroit. That’s six very winnable points — and this team needs points like iPhones need apps.
Coyle said that by harping on the simple things, it’ll happen.
“Sometimes when you do that, you’re not going to get results right away,” he admitted. “But it’s just commitment and trust to do it over and over again until things begin to roll. And they will.”