This is where it ramps up for Joe Sacco’s Bruins
The Bruins made sure they gave interim head coach Joe Sacco a soft landing.
When firing a coach, you basically want to guarantee one of two things: You want to give the new guy a couple of days to get his practices and system tweaks in place. Or, you want to make sure that he has an ‘easier’ schedule so that they can rack up some victories and rebuild a team’s confidence.
The Bruins were able to give Sacco and his now-undermanned support staff both, and the rewards have certainly been there, with the Bruins posting a 7-2-0 record and league-best .778 points percentage since making the switch from Jim Montgomery to Sacco.
But this is where things will ramp up for Sacco’s Bruins, as the Bruins have ventured out for a five-game road trip that’ll include three games against teams currently inside the West’s playoff structure, and one team that begins Tuesday a mere point out of the second wild card.
“I’d like to see how we respond on the road,” Sacco said following Monday’s practice at Warrior ice Arena. “I think it tells a lot about your team when you get on the road, about the identity of your group and how you respond in those different environments.”
For the Bruins, that’s been a focus on details that, for whatever reason, were not there in the first 20 games of the season. It feels like the Bruins get more sticks in shooting lanes now and play a more risk-adverse game. There’s been multiple instances of B’s defensemen — especially those who are not typically asked to be puck transporters (everybody was a transporter under Montgomery) — peeling back opposed to going for a potentially ill-timed activation in the attacking zone. The Bruins have also seen their penalty kill regain its typically-elite form, and though the power play is still stuck in the mud, there’s been signs of life from players who were simply too quiet for too long out of the gate.
Of course, there’s been this idea that the Sacco-led Bruins have, to this point, been favorable schedule merchants. That may be true. I can’t sit here and tell you that the Bruins are playing world beaters. Hell, they were barely playing fringe teams over this nine-game sample.
But, at the end of the day, the Bruins won those games, which they were not doing under Montgomery.
In fact, prior to the change, the Bruins had wins in just four of 11 games against non-playoff opponents, including losses in three of their last four games against teams on the outside looking in. This troubling trend went beyond just the start of this season, too, as the Bruins finished last season with a 5-5-2 record against non-playoff teams during the final three months of the regular season.
This, more than anything else really, is where Bruins general manager Don Sweeney’s comments of “I just didn’t like the direction we were going” feels telling, especially with a string of winnable games directly in front of the Bruins prior to the coaching change.
If the Bruins are a team that’ll find themselves battling and clawing for a third-place finish in their division or a wild card, they knew they couldn’t afford to leave even more points on the table.
And if we look at their lone showing against a playoff team, a 2-0 loss to the Canucks, is there anything to really be truly bothered about in regards to their performance? The Bruins threw everything they could at the Canucks’ Kevin Lankinen, but the Finnish-born netminder stood tall and denied everything. Beyond that, though, the Bruins gave the Canucks absolutely nothing at five-on-five, forced Vancouver to block almost 30 shots, and also forced their defense into giveaway after giveaway. The Bruins simply couldn’t finish, and while that’s going to be a problem for this team more often than just one night given their offensive firepower (or lack thereof), that was one of those losses where you have to go, “OK, if you play like that most nights, the dam is going to break and you’re going to win a lot of games.”
Multiple Bruins said as much after the loss, and they pounded the Islanders for five five-on-five goals (six if you count the empty-net dagger) in their next outing.
Ultimately, improvement is improvement, and the Bruins have consistently shown that under Sacco, and in spots where they were almost constantly failing under Montgomery just one month ago.
And the timing of this correction could not have been more perfect for the Bruins.
Rather than continuing to tread water, the Bruins have effectively turned their season around with this nine-game heater. Since Boston’s coaching change, the Senators have gone 4-5-1 while the Sabres have dropped six of 10 (both teams are tied for the fifth-worst points percentage in the league over that span), and the Red Wings have gone just .500 by way of a 4-4-2 record. At the time of the Montgomery firing, the Bruins were separated by those three teams by a mere three points, and with all three of those in-division clubs having multiple games in hand over Boston.
The Bruins found their separation to put themselves back to where they ultimately think they should be, and as a result may have saved their season. But now comes showing that the Bruins’ tweaks and adjustments can work against some of the league’s best, especially with the Black and Gold’s recent surge potentially putting them back on the watch list of their opponents.
“I think it’s important that we remain true to our identity,” Sacco noted. “That’s what’s given us success lately.”
