Bruins head coach Jim Montgomery doesn’t believe that his team’s obvious and undeniable problems with third-period leads are unique to them. In fact, speaking after Tuesday’s 4-3 overtime loss to the Wild at TD Garden, Montgomery remarked that he watched two different teams blow leads from his couch last night.
But if there was one thing that Montgomery did take issue with, it was the overtime shot from Jake DeBrusk that missed the net and helped spring the Wild for a three-on-one look that ultimately sealed Boston’s fate in this one.
“Gotta get that on net [and] I don’t like the shot selection” Montgomery said of DeBrusk’s overtime shot that sailed wide of Minnesota netminder Marc-Andre Fleury’s cage. “And I don’t like both guys going to the net, going all the way to the goal line. That’s what gives up the three-on-one the other way.”
KIRILL THE THRILL!
— NHL (@NHL) December 20, 2023
Kirill Kaprizov scores the @Energizer overtime winner off a one-timer to lift the @mnwild to victory! ✅ pic.twitter.com/aYCjyBbc8O
“In three-on-three, our game management wasn’t great,” said Montgomery. “We had full possession and we lost it 40 seconds with, I don’t know if it’s a careless pass, but it’s not a tape-to-tape pass. And now they have possession.”
It was a mistake that the Bruins simply couldn’t afford to make on a night that saw Fleury rob the Bruins of what looked like certain goals again and again, and with 40 saves by the night’s end.
“You did sense [frustration] because we had great looks and he was being his Fleury self,” Montgomery offered. “He was reading it well and he was really agile getting it going left to right.”