The Bruins brass held their end-of-season media availability Tuesday morning and there was a common theme felt among head coach Jim Montgomery, president Cam Neely, general manager Don Sweeney and CEO Charlie Jacobs.
Emptiness.
Boston’s 2022-23 historic NHL season came to a heartbreaking halt in a Game 7 loss to the Florida Panthers in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. The Bruins had several opportunities to put the series away, including being up 3-1 at one point and Brad Marchand having Game 5 on his stick on a breakaway.
There now are a lot of questions facing the Bruins as what’s sure to be a busy offseason ahead.
Here are five takeaways from Tuesday’s press conference:
Learning from mistakes
Montgomery made some head-scratching decisions, including jumbling up his lines and breaking up Patrice Bergeron and Brad Marchand. There also was the question regarding his goalie situation and why the head coach elected to stay with Linus Ullmark in Game 6 and not go to Jeremy Swayman until a do-or-die Game 7.
Montgomery said his conversations with Ullmark made him confident in going with Ullmark — who was rock-solid all season for the Bruins — between the pipes, but he “absolutely” wishes he went to Swayman sooner. Hindsight is 20/20 at this point, but the first-year coach took accountability and didn’t shy away from accepting defeat.
“It’s my job to get players to own the moment, seize the moment. And that didn’t happen, and that falls on me,” Montgomery said. “I think with the hard times we went through, we have to learn from them. If we don’t learn from the how are gonna grow? We’ll just repeat the same thing next year. So for me, it’s being able to connect with the players over the course of the summer, build through training camp about what we have to do to make sure we don’t have the same energy level, because we didn’t have the same energy level we had in the regular season, we didn’t have the same puck confidence that we had in the regular season. And it hurts right now, it’s hard right now. …
“… My number one job is to get players to elevate their games and I didn’t do that.”
No timeline on Patrice Bergeron, David Krejci
Both Bergeron and Krejci are unrestricted free agents and are deciding on retirement or returning. They said they will take their time deciding on what comes next, and Sweeney, much like last year, will respect the time Krejci and Bergeron take.
Krejci said he’d like to make his decision “soon,” but it’s unclear how soon he means. Bergeron, meanwhile, wants to have his decision set in stone by July 1.
“We went through this exercise last season,” Sweeney said.
There’s really no telling which way either of them are leaning, but it’s clear the door is open should one or both of them want to return.
Not ruling any UFA out, but changes are coming
A lot of questions surrounding the Bruins have to do with their roster. There are several unrestricted free agents, while Trent Frederic and Jeremy Swayman are restricted free agents. The B’s are up against the cap and it’s not a shock to say the team will look different next year than it did this year, which means they might not be able to re-sign players like Garnet Hathaway, Dmitry Orlov or Tyler Bertuzzi, who they picked up at this year’s NHL trade deadline.
“I couldn’t just categorically sign those players today. Our cap situation, we have some constraints,” Sweeney said. “Our goal this season was to put together the absolute best roster we could put together, and try to make a real legitimate run. And we failed, no question. We have to pay that forward a little bit. That might mean we’re interested in younger players, that might mean roster changes, which we would like to make, that might mean I might be able to sign one of those three players, or other unrestricted players. We have to address the two RFA’s in Frederic and Swayman, which we will do.
“Roster changes are likely coming. We’re not gonna be the same team.”
Sweeney also noted that he has not told any impending free agent that they are not interested in bringing them back, but it won’t be an easy task to bring back a player like Bertuzzi or Orlov given their cap situation.
The Bruins have a lot of young players in Providence like Jakub Lauko — who easily could have played his way into a full-time role next season — Oskar Steen, Fabian Lysell and Mason Lohrei. This could be the chance for someone like Steen, who’s seen minimal NHL action, to make an impact on a big league roster on a consistent basis.
Bergeron made the decision to play Game 5
Bergeron didn’t play in Games 1 through 4 due to a herniated disc in his back — which the captain revealed he suffered in the regular-season finale — and with a 3-1 series lead over the Panthers, Montgomery wondered if it still was worth sitting Bergeron in order to get him some added rest.
“After Game 3, I called Patrice. We were in Florida. I was talking to him,” Montgomery said. “I said, ‘I know you’re doing better, I’ve seen the video of your rehab skates. If we win Game 4, is it prudent for us to give you more time?’
“He goes, ‘What do you mean?’ And I said, ‘Well, do we not play you Game 5?’ And he said, ‘Monty, I’m playing Game 5.’
“That was enough for me. You don’t keep Hall of Fame players out of the lineup.”
The Bruins went on to lose the next three games and Bergeron was a minus-6 in those three contests.
No upcoming surgeries
It’s not uncommon for hockey players to play through injuries, especially during the playoffs, and end up undergoing offseason surgery. But if there is a silver lining for the 2022-23 Bruins, it’s that no player will undergo an operation.
“We do not have any impending surgeries on the books,” Sweeney said.
It’s especially reassuring with the uncertainty surrounding Ullmark’s health, Bergeron’s herniated disc and lower-body injuries that Taylor Hall and Nick Foligno both suffered toward the end of the regular season.
