The personnel assembled by Bruins GM Don Sweeney and the play style set up by coach Jim Montgomery led the 2022-23 Bruins to a record-breaking season. After a transformative offseason, what is their plan for this year?
BRIGHTON, Mass. – If hockey teams were food, the 2022-23 Boston Bruins were a five-star, three-course meal. Bear with me here.
Sure, it didn’t include dessert at the end, but for 82 games, the Bruins dominated offensively, defensively, on special teams, in the face-off dot – everywhere.
The kitchen lost some inventory, so to speak, but that doesn’t mean Bruins general manager Don Sweeney and coach Jim Montgomery want to completely switch up the recipe.
“We were playing fast, we’ll continue to do that,” Sweeney told reporters on Wednesday. “Managing pucks, the puck possession, building your team game are all elements that Jim [Montgomery] strongly believes in and as a coaching staff we reinforce, without sacrificing, hopefully, too much defensive structure. Not to be giving up a trade-chance mentality, even though we felt last year we were pretty well-equipped to play in a different style.”
Given the offensive prowess the team boasted last year, scoring 3.67 goals per game – second to the Edmonton Oilers (3.96) – to go with an NHL-best scoring defense (2.12) and penalty kill (87.3%), the Bruins could afford to go shot-for-shot because they had the talent to out-produce the competition while still conceding less than anyone.
This year, the talent up front is depleted, but the William M. Jennings Trophy-winning goalie tandem of Linus Ullmark and Jeremy Swayman return, along with most of the defensive core, save for midseason acquisition Dmitry Orlov and third-pair fixture Connor Clifton.
By all indications, last year’s prolific scoring machine may lean more on the defensive game as its bread and butter in 2023-24.
“The goaltending, which is a big part of giving me some confidence to implement some of those things, and [Montgomery] wants to continue to build on that,” Sweeney said. “Instilling confidence in players to play with an offensive-creative mindset, but certainly be defensively aware and manage the game effectively.”
Montgomery also expressed that sharpening their game in the defensive zone would be a priority, but also that the style he built up during his Jack Adams-winning campaign will be upgraded rather than remodeled.
“We’re not changing much to how we play,” Montgomery said. “We want to play fast, there’s areas that we think we can play faster in, and we think there’s areas that we can be more physical, and we just think honing in on certain details of our game will make us better offensively and defensively.”
Sweeney made a point of addressing the physicality during the offseason. With Patrice Bergeron, David Krejci and Taylor Hall among the biggest departures from the forward group, the Bruins brought in bigger bodies such as Milan Lucic (6-3, 240), James van Riemsdyk (6-3, 208) and Morgan Geekie (6-3, 200).
Traditionally, adding size tends to take away from speed, but the Bruins hope to play fast while still using size and toughness to their advantage.
“The intimidation factor is not quite what it used to be [with bigger players], but playing tough hockey isn’t dropping your gloves and fighting,” Bruins President Cam Neely said. “Playing tough hockey is battling for loose pucks and boxing guys out, and making sure that, from a defensive standpoint, that you’re in the right lanes.”
So what exactly are the Bruins planning to cook in 2023-24? Turns out, the same stuff that made them successful last year, with a few alterations. The biggest key will be if the new ingredients have the Bruins meal tasting like Michelin stars or Michelin tires.