Elias Lindholm gets brutally honest about start to Bruins career
If there’s one thing you can say about Bruins center Elias Lindholm, it’s that he’s honest. Painfully so, in fact, with things not going his way (or the Bruins’ way for that matter) approaching the quarter mark of the 2024-25 campaign.
“I think overall, for myself, I just haven’t been good enough,” Lindholm, who signed a seven-year, $54.25 million contract last July to be Boston’s new No. 1 center, said following Sunday’s practice at Warrior Ice Arena. “Wouldn’t put the blame on something else other than myself. I gotta be better.”
To Lindholm’s point, he has just two goals through his first 19 games with the Bruins, and has now gone 16 straight games without a goal. He didn’t even have a shot on goal in Saturday’s overtime loss to the Blues. And unfortunately for Lindholm, it’s not all that better when you look at the points overall, with just nine points through 19 games, and four straight games without a point of any sort. It’s Lindholm’s second ‘lengthy’ point drought of the season, with a seven-game drought from Oct. 14 through Oct. 29.
It’s just the latest concerning development with Lindholm after the three-zone threat, with the first being what felt like a brutal lack of chemistry with top-line wingers Pavel Zacha and David Pastrnak before the Bruins ultimately moved him down a line.
“For myself, I think just gotta be more involved,” said Lindholm. “For 60 minutes, [I’m] not doing too much out there… just kind of skating up and down the ice. I gotta be more involved and want the puck more.”
According to Lindholm, that wanting but not having the puck has not been an unfulfilled wish on his end, but rather his own game apparently vanishing out of frame and away from the puck of late.
“I think for all players, when you’re feeling good about your game and you have confidence, you’re around the puck more and you’re in the right spots,” Lindholm offered. “But when you don’t have the confidence and things are not going your way, you’re kind of hiding.
“That’s kind of what’s been happening.”
On one hand, there’s something to be said for Lindholm (now the second-highest paid Bruins forward behind Pastrnak in terms of average annual value) outright admitting that he has not been good enough for this team. But on the other, the lack of confidence expressed here was downright alarming. Even when it came to getting his game right with his current linemates, Brad Marchand and Justin Brazeau, Lindholm couldn’t help but continue to blast his own game.
“If I find my game and are a better player for us, I think my thing has always been I make my teammates better and my linemates better,” Lindholm noted. “It’s hard for them when you’re a center that’s supposed to drive a line that’s not playing good enough.
“As long as I’m not getting better, it’s gonna be hard for them.”
Lindholm and the Bruins, who have dropped two games in a row by way of an 0-1-1 streak, will look to generate some positive momentum on Monday night when they go head-to-head with a Columbus team surrendering the fourth-most goals against per game (3.59) this season.