Jim Montgomery explains why Bruins pulled Jeremy Swayman early in lopsided loss
"I just thought we had no life at that time in the game."
The Bruins’ impressive start to the 2023-24 season sure feels like a long time ago.
After posting lopsided losses to two playoff teams in the Red Wings and Rangers last week, Boston’s struggles continued on Monday with a 5-2 loss to the cellar-dwelling Blue Jackets at Nationwide Arena.
Boston’s third-straight regulation loss was the worst defeat doled out at this stage of the 2023-24 campaign, especially with Columbus playing on the second leg of a back-to-back stretch.
The Bruins’ continued slide prompted Jim Montgomery to fire a shot across the bow early in the second period. After Ivan Provorov gave the Jackets a 2-0 lead just 5:38 into the middle frame, Bruins goaltender Jeremy Swayman was pulled by Montgomery after stopping 17 of 19 shots.
Linus Ullmark took over for the remainder of Monday’s loss, giving up two goals on 21 shots.
It marked the first time this season that the Bruins have opted to switch goalies in the middle of a game.
And even though it’s far from a shocking decision to swap goalies after extended stretches of poor play, Swayman was given a quick hook on Monday — especially after Ullmark was knocked for seven goals during Saturday’s blowout loss to the Rangers.
Speaking postgame, Montgomery noted that the decision to take out Swayman had little to do with the goalie’s own play, but rather the players around him.
“I just thought we had no life at that time in the game,” Montgomery said on NESN’s postgame coverage of the decision to pull Swayman. “I wanted to see a little bit of a change here. So that was the reasoning behind it.”
After opening the season with a 6-0-0 record, Swayman has now posted a .887 save percentage over his last five appearances. But even if the Bruins netminder has regressed a bit from his hot start, Boston’s defensive woes in front of its goalies have loomed large over this current slide.
As noted by Boston Sports Info, the Bruins have now coughed up five or more goals in five of their last 11 games.
They only relinquished 5+ goals six total times in their previous 92 games before this lengthy skid of defensive ineptitude.
The Bruins will look to snap their three-game losing streak on Thursday when they host the San Jose Sharks.
“The biggest thing is you can’t dwell on it,” Brad Marchand said postgame. “You want to try to learn from it, but in this game — you can’t get caught up in the past. It’s always about looking forward to the next day and getting better. And that’s something we have an opportunity to do on Wednesday. We need to reset tomorrow.”
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