BOSTON — Whatever the Bruins were doing in the regular season was working.
So why are they switching things up now?
Boston essentially rolled to the Presidents’ Trophy in 2022-23, putting together a historic regular season that looked primed to carry over into the Stanley Cup playoffs. While the Bruins haven’t been close to bad, they certainly haven’t been as dominant. Their opening-round series against the Florida Panthers, which will head to a sixth game following Wednesday night’s overtime loss, has been full of lulls for the Black and Gold, but the specifics behind where they are coming are about as confusing as it gets.
“Well, in Boston there has been (lulls), that’s for sure,” Bruins head coach Jim Montgomery said postgame. “For whatever reason, we didn’t start on time, they were the better team in the first period.”
It was the second consecutive game between the two teams at TD Garden that was defined by Bruins mistakes. In fact, that is becoming a troubling trend for Boston, who is taking some steps forward in areas that needed improvement but have taken a step back as a whole.
“I thought our power play could have sealed the game there, the last power play,” Montgomery said of his team’s power-play opportunity with three minutes remaining in regulation. “I don’t even know if we got a good look on it to be honest, but we got two power play goals in the game. So we’ve got to get more five-on-five scoring when we’re at home.
“We got a lot in Florida, but we didn’t get enough in the three games at home so far.”
On paper, the trend makes absolutely no sense. The Bruins basically scrimmaged all of their opponents at home during the regular season, but have been much more dominant in their two road contests so far in the postseason. They were also pretty dominant on the road in the regular season, but that’s neither here nor there.
The changes didn’t just come in play, but came in personnel as Montgomery made a litany of line changes before and during Game 5. That will likely again be the case in Game 6, which starts on Friday at 7:30 p.m. ET at FLA Live Arena. This time, though, the Bruins will hope it helps and doesn’t hurt.
