Bruins’ Jim Montgomery Saw Plenty Wrong In Game 2 Loss To Maple Leafs

BOSTON — Bruins head coach Jim Montgomery didn’t have rose-colored glasses on after Boston’s Game 2 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs at TD Garden.

Montgomery saw plenty of areas in which the Bruins need to improve with the best-of-seven series knotted at 1-1.

Discipline play might be at the top of Montgomery’s list as penalties proved costly in Boston’s 3-2 defeat Monday night. The Bruins committed five infractions, including being whistled twice for too many men on the ice.

The Maple Leafs began their rally on the power play as they leveled the score with 1:34 left in the second period thanks to John Tavares tally before Auston Matthews netted the decisive goal in the final frame.

“I actually liked our second period until we took the penalties, and then their power play got rolling,” Montgomery said. “They get juice from the power play. I thought in the third period they were better than we were.”

Montgomery also took issue with Boston’s offense, which put 29 shots on Maple Leafs goalie Ilya Samsonov but only a few came from high-quality chances.

“I think it’s a function of they’re defending well. It’s also a function of we’re not playing fast enough,” Montgomery said. “We’re slow in transition, which is not allowing us to possess pucks and get in on the forecheck.”

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Montgomery certainly wanted more out of the Bruins forwards, especially after Boston was down to five defensemen in front of Linus Ullmark for 20-plus minutes due to an injury to Andrew Peeke.

But Montgomery didn’t get what he wanted. The Bruins went on the power play with just over six minutes left, but didn’t do much with it.

“I thought our five (defensemen) gave us everything they could,” Montgomery said. “I thought our forwards needed to take over the game in the third period.”

Even though the Bruins scored first on a power-play goal from Morgan Geekie, the Maple Leafs dictated play for large segments of the game.

Toronto was more aggressive, which was natural as it didn’t want to be starting at a 2-0 series deficit. But the Bruins need to find a way to ramp things up for Game 3.

“I didn’t think our urgency was where it needed to be to prevail,” Montgomery said. “I didn’t think puck management was a detriment to us. I just didn’t think we won enough wall battles to get out of our end successfully.”