2 days Ago By Conor Ryan
By Conor Ryan COMMENTARY A Bruins season inundated with disappointment and dismay found its fitting encapsulation on Monday night at TD Garden. After whiffing on a shot at the offensive blue line, Brandon Carlo skated back in vain to try to derail a breakaway bid for the Columbus Blue Jackets. Jeremy Swayman turned aside Dmitri Voronkov’s backhand bid .
.. only for the 6-foot-5 Carlo to collide with his goalie in the crease — knocking the biscuit into the net for a 1-0 Columbus lead.
this sums up the 2024-2025 boston bruins pic.twitter.com/lXFRtExTmi It was a succinct summary for how a rebuilding Columbus squad skated off the ice with a 5-1 win over a freefalling 8-9-3 Bruins team.
But there were plenty of options to choose from on a miserable evening in Boston’s barn. Maybe it was Boston’s power play — once a pillar of production and stability during their decades-long contention window — getting caved on via two shorthanded goals en route to a putrid 1-for-6 showing. Or perhaps it was one of the several instances in which the Blue Jackets — entering Monday with one win so far in November — looked like the Florida Panthers as they picked off errant breakout passes and had a Bruins team short on both skill and will sucking air in their own end of the ice.
Whichever unsightly sequence suits your preference, they all paint the same picture of a Bruins team completely rudderless — and running out of time to find solutions. “Definitely not happy with the way that things are going,” Brad Marchand acknowledged postgame. “We need to be much better in a lot of areas.
Mistakes are going to happen in a game, and we’re just kind of compounding them, and it’s not acceptable to continue to have the same mistakes and do the same things over and over that aren’t bringing us success. So yeah, we need to be a lot better.” Positives have been hard to come by in 2024-25 for a Bruins team entering the year with high expectations.
But during a season that has already seen Boston shut out three times — and cough up five or more goals on five occasions through 20 games — Monday’s showing (or lack thereof) might have been the breaking point. Boston played the hits in its latest letdown. The Bruins’ last-place power play was downright dreadful.
Boston is now just 9-for-77 on the man advantage this season while also relinquishing four shorthanded goals. Charlie Coyle offered little resistance as Mathieu Olivier pushed past him and tucked a puck past Swayman for the Blue Jackets’ first shorthanded strike in the opening frame. DANNY DOES IT AGAIN! Our 2nd shorty of the night💥 @FanaticsBook | #CBJ pic.
twitter.com/PYLDuLsPh7 Mason Lohrei misplayed a puck and was out-muscled by Cole Sillinger in the third period, setting up Justin Danforth’s shorthanded goal on the subsequent 2-on-1 rush. Boston’s top power play QB in Charlie McAvoy nearly had a disastrous power-play gaffe at the blue line in the second period — with a strong backchecking effort from Pavel Zacha negating another quality look for Columbus’ PK.
Director's cut showing the McAvoy mishandle that led to the breakaway pic.twitter.com/2znQcvt9El “It’s costing us a lot of games and a lot of points right now,” Marchand said of the power play.
“To have success in this league, your special teams have to be really good. ..
.. It’s a privilege to be on the power play.
It’s not a given. And we need to be much better. We need to be way better than what we’ve been.
The accountability hasn’t been there in that area. There’s no excuse.” Add in another porous outing from Swayman ( now down to a .
884 save percentage through 14 games ) and more no-shows from Boston’s big guns up front (David Pastrnak with zero shots on goal over 17:56 of ice time), and a Bruins season that opened with so much promise now runs the risk of going off the rails. “Everyone goes through struggles. Whether (in your) life or your team,” Jim Montgomery said.
“That’s what life’s about. How do you pick yourself up? It’s not how hard you fall. It’s how quickly you pick yourself up.
” It remains to be seen if Montgomery will get the opportunity to right the ship with this team. But even if Don Sweeney and Boston’s top brass opt to move on from Montgomery in search of a spark, whoever steps up behind the bench will have their work cut out for them. The numbers are what they are at this point for the Bruins.
The Bruins currently boast a minus-21 goal differential — the third-worst mark in the league behind only the lowly Penguins and Sharks. Boston’s special teams have completely imploded via a league-worst power play (11.7 percent) and a 25th-ranked penalty kill (75.
6 percent). Its offensive conduits like Pastrnak (three 5-on-5 goals) have left a lot to be desired, while several key cogs up front like Charlie Coyle, Trent Frederic, Pavel Zacha, and Morgan Geekie have all severely regressed. Top free-agent signings like Elias Lindholm (nine points in 20 games) and Nikita Zadorov have not moved the needle at all.
Boston’s stout defensive structure has taken on water, with Swayman’s slow start further compounding their issues. Beyond the individual woes, the Bruins as a whole are simply an uncompetitive product right now. They’re seemingly allergic to momentum, squandering whatever “get right” result they’ve seized with a back-breaking result just a few days later.
Boston has yet to win three games in a row all season long. They’re undisciplined, with their 101 total penalties tops in the league — and well ahead of second place Philadelphia (90). A desire to bulk up Boston’s roster in hopes of greater postseason returns have already spiraled through six weeks of regular-season action.
They’re not putting pressure on opposing defenses, with only Montreal and Detroit generating fewer shots per 60 minutes of 5-on-5 play than Boston (28.8). And they’re not delivering in crunch time, especially on Causeway Street.
Boston has not scored a third-period goal at TD Garden since Oct. 11, which was the team’s home opener. “I think it starts with our compete level,” Marchand said of Boston’s struggles.
“I think it always starts with your compete level ...
We have to understand what our identity is and play to that, and we’ve yet to do that, really, for a full 60-minute game.” Maybe they’ll snap out of it in due time. Maybe a coaching change of a roster reshuffle will shake the Bruins from the low-event, onerous product that has created a cascade of boos on Monday night.
Or maybe the 2024-25 Bruins are what they are ...
a bad hockey team. Through 20 games, that about sums it up. Conor Ryan Conor Ryan is a staff writer covering the Bruins, Celtics, Patriots, and Red Sox for Boston.
com, a role he has held since 2023. Sign up for Bruins updates🏒 Get breaking news and analysis delivered to your inbox during hockey season. Be civil.
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