Boston Bruins head coach Jim Montgomery speaks to one of his players during the second period of an NHL hockey game against Seattle Kraken on Nov. 3.Mark Stockwell/The Associated Press
The Boston Bruins were finally in the process of staking two decent games in a row when head coach Jim Montgomery pulled the fire alarm.
Rather than cruise to the victory, Montgomery benched the team’s best player, David Pastrnak, for the third period.
“Coach’s decision,” Montgomery said. “That’s all I’m going to comment on.”
Saying it that way is like tossing a deck of cards on the table after Thanksgiving dinner. People are gonna want to play that game.
Hockey detectives found a sequence at the end of the second period that may have done it. Bruins on the power play. Pastrnak coming up the middle of the ice. Upon meeting resistance, Pastrnak attempted to pirouette through a defender and was stripped of the puck. Play headed the other way, but fizzled. The announcers didn’t make much of it, but Montgomery may have.
This kind of thing is going around in Boston. A few days ago, Montgomery unloaded on Brad Marchand on the bench after a giveaway, going so far as to poke at him angrily in the shoulder. If the Celtics coach tried it, there would be a brawl.
But in Boston’s hockey setup, this sort of thing is a male bonding ritual.
“You make a mistake like that, you deserve to hear about it,” Marchand said later. “I’m glad that he said something about it. If he didn’t, we’d have much bigger issues.”
After being pushed around in the playoffs, Boston came into this year looking as directionless as they had in ages. Their one solid postseason performer, goalie Jeremy Swayman, took advantage by complaining about his contract in the press. Management was publicly bent to his will. A bunch of affectless starts and close losses marred October. The Boston Way was in trouble.
Given that, there is a clear method in Montgomery’s approach. He goes out and whacks the biggest dog on the team with a rolled-up newspaper and gets a positive response. A couple of days later, he goes after the second biggest.
Montgomery got what he wanted. On Monday, a chagrined Pastrnak said he needed to be better. The key phrase in his apology: “I don’t want to be a distraction to our team.”
In other words, ‘Yes sir, no excuse, sir.’
If things go wrong again, it’s Swayman’s turn. Eventually, the pack will get the message.
The Bruins aren’t particularly good right now (6-6-1), but they still look and feel like the best version of themselves – a gladiator school on ice.
On Tuesday, the Bruins visit Toronto for the first time this season. The Leafs have similar problems, a similar head coach, but a lot less marine barracks-type consensus.
One month into the year, the Leafs are just as disengaged as Boston. They’ll beat the hell out of an undefeated Winnipeg team in Winnipeg, and then lose badly to their coach’s former team in his homecoming. Plus ça change and all that.
New coach Craig Berube comes from the same ‘Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil since I am the meanest so-and-so in the valley’ school as Montgomery. Both were smart, thuggish players who created on-ice space with their elbows rather than their feet (though Berube was a lot better at it).
Berube pulled one from the Boston playbook last week – separating the biggest alpha from the herd and putting him in his place. He chose Auston Matthews.
Same situation – a silly giveaway leading to a goal, a confrontation on the bench. Berube wasn’t spitting mad, like Montgomery had been. He didn’t touch Matthews. He was even careful to keep a two-man distance between them.
The instant he realized he was being singled out, Matthews looked away. Berube waved his hands around to no one in particular. It wasn’t exactly a tongue-lashing for the ages, but in Toronto, it was a big deal.
In Boston, Marchand went out of his way to defend Montgomery – “People are very sensitive these days. It’s unfortunate how coaches are scrutinized over things like that …”
Mostly it was Marchand’s body language and tone – relaxed, easy. If what happened bothered him, it didn’t look like it.
In Toronto, Matthews knew better than to push back. That’s a 2022 move, not a 2024 one. But in terms of tone and body language, he seemed a long way from happy about it.
“It’s hockey. You get yelled at some times. Coach yells. You just kind of take it as it goes. … It’s not anything you take personal.”
That’s the whole point – to take it personal. Marchand took it personally (“You make a mistake like that, you deserve to hear about it”). Matthews seemed to treat the incident as a theatrical performance directed at fans and media, rather than at him. Here’s the coach trying to prove he’s a hard ass. Okay, boomer.
Nearly two weeks later, it’s no longer notable that Berube did it, but that he hasn’t done it again. The Leafs are getting more mediocre, not less. There are plenty of likely suspects. But having not got the hoped-for reaction the first go-round, there is more risk to trying it a second time.
If Berube goes in on Mitch Marner or William Nylander – the next two obvious candidates – and gets blowback, then the Leafs have a serious problem. You can already sense the head coach treading more carefully than he did in previous posts in Philadelphia and St. Louis. After the latest grinding defeat to Minnesota, Berube was Captain Positivity.
Tuesday’s Leafs-Boston game has no big-picture implications, and probably won’t have any little-picture ones either. It’s the second of four this season. If history is our guide, there will be seven more after that.
These encounters don’t matter until they do. However the regular season turns out, Boston will have the mental advantage going into any playoff encounter with the Leafs.
All these two clubs are doing right now is trying to figure out who they are, who’s in charge and where they’re headed. Only one of them is making obvious progress on that front.
