Jim Montgomery Reveals Frustrating Concern About Bruins Start

Coming off another frustrating loss at the hands of the Florida Panthers, Boston Bruins head coach Jim Montgomery called out his best players for not “doing their role,” and after practice on Tuesday, the message was even more clear that the team’s battle levels were a bigger issue than new linemates building chemistry early in the season.

“Way more concerning, especially this early in the year,” Montgomery told reporters following Bruins practice at Warrior Ice Arena on Tuesday, per team-provided video. “You’re going to have times in the season where you’re going to go 3-6-1 in 10 games. … Last year we went through it, our bad part was early December right before Christmas, and you’ve got to find ways to get out of it.”

Montgomery continued: “But right now, it’s the effort level, the consistency of our effort level over chemistry, that is hurting, and that really affects execution.”

Bruins star David Pastrnak spoke with reporters following practice and admitted he shares his coach’s frustration with how the team has played through four games this season.

“The only frustration is probably that we know we are a much better team than we showed so far,” Pastrnak said, per team-provided video. “So, that’s definitely frustrating, because we know we can do much better. … I would say healthy frustration, just because we know we can be much better than what we showed.

“It starts with the details. You don’t look for the home run. Starts with the battles. Starts with the details. Make sure the compete level is there, and you’re winning battles, and the rest will come usually. We haven’t played great hockey yet. We’re still in a pretty good spot. We got two wins. Is it deserved or not? It doesn’t matter. We got two wins. It’s hard to win in this league. So, we just have to make sure we keep getting better every game. It wasn’t an easy schedule. We got the Stanley Cup champions twice in the first four games.”

During the loss to the Panthers, Montgomery switched up the lines a bit by putting Brad Marchand with Matthew Poitras and Justin Brazeau while Charlie Coyle dropped down to center a line with Trent Frederic and Morgan Geekie. Montgomery said he isn’t sure how the lines will shake out heading into the three-game road trip, but he has no intention of changing the fourth line of Johnny Beecher, Mark Kastelic and Cole Koepke.

“I can, and I usually do that, and I switched up the lines a little bit, a couple of lines (against the Panthers),” Montgomery said. “I’m not going to touch the Kastelic line because they’re just too good right now. We went out and did a couple of drills today, and again they were very good.”

The Bruins have three games against Western Conference opponents beginning Wednesday night against the Colorado Avalanche.