After months of dominance, the 2022-23 Bruins lost four legacy-defining games to their greatest nemesis — themselves.
The Bruins’ season was toppled by days of uncharacteristic missteps and costly second-guesses.
COMMENTARY
It felt inevitable, didn’t it?
As the final seconds drained off the clock at TD Garden on Sunday night, the 2022-23 Bruins were in command. As expected.
Chaos reigns supreme during the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
But Jim Montgomery’s squad piled up 65 regular-season wins by clinically snuffing out late-game rallies at a record-setting rate.
That air of invincibility — much like the decibel-defying chorus of cheers on Causeway Street — was sucked out of Boston’s barn as soon as Brandon Montour’s one-timer found twine with one minute left in regulation.
Indeed, it felt all but inevitable … that a Bruins season filled with so much promise and hope was destined to end in heartbreaking fashion.
Carter Veghaeghe’s turnaround wrister delivered the dagger at 8:35 in overtime, sinking a Bruins core now staring at a painful future.
The Bruins have been in this spot before.
You know them at this point — Scott Walker, Dave Bolland, Alex Pietrangelo. All Bruins antagonists who capitalized during the frantic fracas that is playoff hockey.
But the 2022-23 Bruins were not felled by one single play, despite Verheaghe’s series-sealing snap past Jeremy Swayman.
Rather, the 2022-23 Bruins’ season was toppled by days of uncharacteristic missteps, second-guesses and logic-defying gaffes — all doled out by their greatest foe, themselves.
“I do think our first two games we played, we weren’t ready for the intensity of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, and I think that goes with the regular season,” Jim Montgomery said following Boston’s 4-3 loss in Game 7. “But Games 5, 6 and 7, we had dug in and that’s where it’s a little stupefying.”
Stupefying is the apt term.
How else can one explain Boston’s inexplicable first-round exit?
The 2022-23 Bruins dominated the third period during the regular season, holding a plus-54 goal differential. Against the Panthers, Boston coughed up 13 third-period goals — relinquishing late leads in both Games 6 and 7.
Anchored by a fleet-footed D corps, the Bruins made life easier for their netminders all year by limiting Grade-A chances in their D zone. Over 82 games, Boston was knocked for 15 or more high-danger chances against six times during 5v5 play. They did it twice in seven playoff bouts with Florida.
The 2022-23 Bruins rarely trod water in their own zone thanks to poised puck movement. That was far from the case this postseason, with the Panthers scoring eight 5v5 goals within five seconds of a Bruins turnover. In a do-or-die Game 7, Boston committed a series-high 18 giveaways.
“I can’t contemplate — I felt we had the right personnel and I have to take some responsibility for not being able to get us to play north quicker,” Montgomery said of Boston’s struggles against Florida’s forecheck. “So if I can answer that right now, I’d say it lies on me.”
Be it Connor McDavid, Sidney Crosby or a slew of other elite opponents, the Bruins rarely let one player or top line unravel their defensive structure.
But Boston had no answer for a Panthers line anchored by Matthew Tkachuk and Sam Bennett. During that duo’s 77:52 of 5v5 ice time together, Florida held a 5-2 edge in goals scored and a 21-9 advantage in high-danger scoring chances.
“I thought that Bennett line was pretty dominant,” Montgomery said. “Tkachuk’s an outstanding hockey player and we didn’t contain him, I thought they always changed the momentum back to them every time they were on the ice pretty much. If I’m looking at the series, that was the biggest difference pretty much.”
On the ice this postseason, the Bruins were a far cry from the dominant team we saw all winter.
But behind the bench is where some of the most consequential decisions of this series were made — oftentimes hours before the puck was dropped.
Postgame, Montgomery acknowledged that his lineup tinkering ahead of Game 5 stood out as a misstep he’d like to have back. Boston sleepwalked through the opening 20 minutes of that game, eating up valuable time in a potential clinching contest.
Two days later, Montgomery’s augmented D corps gave way to a 7-5 implosion, with Connor Clifton slotting into the lineup and promptly getting tagged with a minus-3 rating.
Boston’s inexplicable overthinking in terms of its record-setting personnel was stamped by the team’s woeful handling of its goalie rotation.
After trading starts all season long between Linus Ullmark and Jeremy Swayman, the Bruins opted to run Ullmark into the ground with six starts over 12 days — even as the netminder posted dwindling returns between the pipes.
By the time the Bruins finally called on Swayman to stop the bleeding, it was too late — tossing the 24-year-old into a Game 7 after 17 days between starts.
“You’d have to ask goalie Bob [Essensa] a little more in detail about that, but we all thought that he was going to give us the best opportunity tonight,” Montgomery said of the switch to Swayman.
For now, an uncertain offseason awaits.
And as Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci mull over their future, the only inevitable sentiment surrounding the Bruins is the pained realization of what could have been.
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