That pregame meeting they showed on ESPN when he was standing there in the circle I was thinking to myself "DON'T BREATHE ON ANYONE!!"
Game 1: Panthers @ Bruins
- Thread starter cshea
- Start date
I think near the end of the game Monty just shortened the bench to the 3 lines and 2 pairs that were playing best. Taylor Hall, Trent Frederic, and Nick Foglino are not defensive standouts, I think its ok that they stayed on the bench in that situation. If the B's were down 1, I'd expect to see a lot of hall .
No, It was last night. I don't know what to make of it. They said Lauko dropped 8 pounds during his bout with the illness, maybe Bergy caught it bad too and just needs a day or two to regain strength and energy?
For a club that's in the playoffs nearly every year and making deep runs more often than not, it's bad they can't get this figured out. Even the Bolts have significantly better ice with 3463636x the humidity.
His best use is 3rd line C IMO. So responsible with his play, and his size plays so well in the corners. When his stickhandling is on (not always the case), the O he brings is an added bonus.
One of my favorite traditions!
Never seen this type of graphic before--very cool.Hall didn't play the last 8 or 10 minutes or so? Did we see/hear anything?
co-signed!
Hard for me to say which period was most impressive. I can't find shots by period, but my eyes and memory tell me that the Panthers outskated the Bruins for periods 1 and 2, and then the Bs put the clamps on in the 3rd. So with that, I'll say that the 2nd is probably most because of the 2 even strength goals. Basically, even sick as dogs and the Panthers skating their legs off early, the Bruins still outscored them 3-1. Stifling!
Yep, I'm wrong all the time. I hope it is simply lack of energy after a few dehydrated days.
And they have also been "resting and rotating" for much of the last 6 weeks, which makes their depth much more real than just what it might appear on paper.
I don’t know, I didn’t really think the Panthers had many quality chances or clean looks outside of a fluke. Conversely, the offense had 10 shots towards the end of the second. The last 23 minutes or so was obviously a big improvement for everyone.
Naturally, the penalties magically ended up even.
NST had Florida for 33 scoring chances and 15 high danger chances at 5x5, both marks among the most the Bruins have allowed in a single game all season. Ullmark faced 10 high danger shots against and stopped 9 of them. The 3rd was definitely their best period, at both ends of the ice, so that's encouraging. The illness issue shouldn't be overlooked either but it wasn't exactly a lock down defensive performance. Monty even said it himself, they got a result which is all that matters this time of year but the process needs to be better.
This was kind of the reverse of the Bruins/Islanders games from two years ago where the Bruins would dominate the stat sheet and fail to finish while the Isles would get 2 greasy ones and a PPG or something and we'd lose.
I think most of those high-danger chances were the product of a cluster of bouncing pucks and a wall of humanity in front of the net rather than poor defense per se. Not that they were great, but I didn't see that as one of our worst games of the year.
Early on, I didn't think Ullmark was as sharp at controlling rebounds as he became later in the game.
I’m coming around to the idea that it was three major factors at once:
1. Down with the sickness - a bug like that can mess up a team. Even a day or two after the taps turn off, you’re still drained.
2. It’s been a while - beyond the idea that guys like Foligno and Forbort hadn’t seen anything beyond an organized scrimmage the last couple months, no one on the team has been up against a fired-up, hungry team in a very long time. This was the first meaningful game they’ve played since March.
3. Bergeron - we’ve talked about how deep the team is, but Bergeron’s absence is a unique case of one of probably two or three players on this team that can’t be approximated by someone else. I mentioned how bad Krejci was on the PP1 bumper. Zacha centring Marchand and DeBrusk saw the line slightly underwater in 5v5 xGF% compared to the team as a whole, something you’d think wouldn’t happen with 37 there.
As far as Game 2 goes, if Bergy’s good to go, he slots back in. The downwind effect of I’m coaching is Foligno sits, and Frederic slots into LW4. On defence, Forbort’s out. I saw the argument that Florida’s heavy style could expose Grzelcyk, but I think they’re playing recklessly heavy. Several times, a forward would commit to a check and move in to hit, vacating his zone and springing a Bruins forward on a counter or odd-man rush. While Forbort’s going to absorb that contact better, the better puck-mover could take advantage of the Panthers’ lack of defensive discipline and spring some dangerous counters.
That said, it’s far more likely Monty slots Bergeron back in, sits Frederic, and we just hope Forbort doesn’t become the weak link Maurice can exploit.
1. Down with the sickness - a bug like that can mess up a team. Even a day or two after the taps turn off, you’re still drained.
2. It’s been a while - beyond the idea that guys like Foligno and Forbort hadn’t seen anything beyond an organized scrimmage the last couple months, no one on the team has been up against a fired-up, hungry team in a very long time. This was the first meaningful game they’ve played since March.
3. Bergeron - we’ve talked about how deep the team is, but Bergeron’s absence is a unique case of one of probably two or three players on this team that can’t be approximated by someone else. I mentioned how bad Krejci was on the PP1 bumper. Zacha centring Marchand and DeBrusk saw the line slightly underwater in 5v5 xGF% compared to the team as a whole, something you’d think wouldn’t happen with 37 there.
As far as Game 2 goes, if Bergy’s good to go, he slots back in. The downwind effect of I’m coaching is Foligno sits, and Frederic slots into LW4. On defence, Forbort’s out. I saw the argument that Florida’s heavy style could expose Grzelcyk, but I think they’re playing recklessly heavy. Several times, a forward would commit to a check and move in to hit, vacating his zone and springing a Bruins forward on a counter or odd-man rush. While Forbort’s going to absorb that contact better, the better puck-mover could take advantage of the Panthers’ lack of defensive discipline and spring some dangerous counters.
That said, it’s far more likely Monty slots Bergeron back in, sits Frederic, and we just hope Forbort doesn’t become the weak link Maurice can exploit.
Yeah, that was part of it. The first period he looked to be battling nerves (or the shits), but even then it didn't seem like he faced many dangerous chances off of them.
I know this is an objective measure, but it really didn't seem that way to me. Maybe the Panthers had a number of jabs at the puck with huge traffic in front off of rebounds, but it was usually clogged up and handled fairly easily by Ullmark. He had one really nice reaction save in the first from maybe 7-8 feet off a scrum, but I thought the defense handled transition well and didn't allow many free looks when they were slogged down in their own end. It seemed like the biggest problem was transitioning out of their own end, and the forwards definitely played their role in that, as did the shitty ice.
Florida won 48% of the face-offs. If felt like 88%. Having Bergeron is such a luxury both in terms of game flow and in terms of actual possession time and high impact possession situations. He sometimes makes the face-off circle a defacto possession arrow tool for the Bruins. I think Florida benefited from it being a coin flip.
Maybe it's his ubiquitous mentions of Scotty Bowman, but if there's anyone who can figure out a way to deploy the Best of Bergeron only in high-lev situations while not wrecking the lineup, it's Monty.
