On this episode of Pucks with Haggs, host Joe Haggerty is joined by guest Mick Colageo to discuss the Bruins firing Jim Montgomery, and where the B's go from here after the coaching change. With Joe Sacco taking over head coaching duties, what will the team look like going forward? Is this the turning point the team has been waiting for? All that, and much more!
0:00 - Jim Montgomery fired
4:14 - Don Sweeney's comments
5:47 - Contract negotiation issues
9:01 - Accountability issues discussed
12:20 - Player performance evaluations
14:18 - Coaching decisions discussed
17:12 - Montgomery's coaching style
19:40 - Player motivation insights
21:18 - Player selections discussed
23:02 - Bruins coaching change
27:50 - Defensive strategy emphasis
29:30 - Bruins' simpler play
34:11 - Bruins' playoff potential
36:04 - Bruins' play improvement
38:50 - Joe Sacco's coaching
43:09 - Coaching accountability
45:35 - Winningest GM
48:41 - Potential coaching changes
********************************************
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0:00 - Jim Montgomery fired
4:14 - Don Sweeney's comments
5:47 - Contract negotiation issues
9:01 - Accountability issues discussed
12:20 - Player performance evaluations
14:18 - Coaching decisions discussed
17:12 - Montgomery's coaching style
19:40 - Player motivation insights
21:18 - Player selections discussed
23:02 - Bruins coaching change
27:50 - Defensive strategy emphasis
29:30 - Bruins' simpler play
34:11 - Bruins' playoff potential
36:04 - Bruins' play improvement
38:50 - Joe Sacco's coaching
43:09 - Coaching accountability
45:35 - Winningest GM
48:41 - Potential coaching changes
********************************************
💰 Prize Picks - https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/CLNS
Download the app today and use Code CLNS when you sign up & Get $50 instantly when you play $5!
🎫 Gametime - https://gametime.co
Take the guesswork out of buying NHL tickets with Gametime. Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code CLNS for $20 off your first purchase. Download Gametime today. Terms apply. What time is it? Gametime!
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SportsTranscript
00:00Pucks with Hags is brought to you by Price Picks and the Game Time app.
00:05Welcome to another edition of the Pucks with Hags podcast powered by Prize Picks,
00:09the exclusive daily fantasy partner of the CLNS Media Network. This is the 142nd episode of the
00:15Pucks with Hags podcast. I'm your host, Joe Hagerty. You can find my work at joehagerty.substack.com.
00:21Subscribe and get yourself a premium membership. You get all of my NHL and Bruins writing sent
00:25straight directly to your inbox. I also write columns three times a week for the Boston Sports
00:29Journal. So go to bostonsportsjournal.com, get a subscription there also and check all that out.
00:34I have with me today, longtime friend and colleague, Mick Colaggio. Mick,
00:37please tell everybody where they can find your work.
00:39My Rink Rap blog, Rink Rap blog can be, is always linked to X and Facebook.
00:46And I'm in the seasonal issues of the Hockey News.
00:51Very good. So check all of that stuff out. Let's also thank our sponsors real quick before we get
00:55into it. PrizePix, our good friends at PrizePix. Download the PrizePix app today and use the code
01:00CLNS and get $50 instantly when you play five bucks. That's code CLNS on PrizePix to get $50
01:06instantly when you play $5. You don't even need to win to receive the $50 bonus. It's guaranteed.
01:11PrizePix, run your game. And let's also thank our friends at Game Time. If you want any kind
01:17of concert tickets, comedy tickets, definitely sports tickets, Bruins tickets, anything,
01:23download the Game Time app, create an account, and use the code CLNS for $20 off your first
01:28purchase. Terms do apply, of course, but download the Game Time app, create an account, and use the
01:32code CLNS for $20 off your first purchase. Download Game Time today. What time is it, Mick?
01:39Game time.
01:40Game time. That's right. Go check out Game Time, everybody. All right, Mick, let's just get right
01:46into it. Let's rip off the Band-Aid. Let's talk about it. I mean, this is not a surprise. This
01:50is something that we've discussed kind of ad nauseam as the Bruins sputtered and struggled
01:55through the start of this season after a very middling training camp and preseason. Jim Montgomery
02:01fired as the head coach of the Boston Bruins earlier this week despite 120 wins over two
02:08in about a third seasons, which is pretty damn good. I think he leaves as the highest winning
02:15points percentage coach in Bruins history during the regular season as he got the game.
02:21Which is hard to do.
02:22It definitely is. But I mean, there's no question he had very good results, and some of it is skewed
02:28by like the best regular season of all time that first year. That's going to make his overall
02:31numbers look really good. But in general, very effective in the first two years during the
02:36regular season. But it was clear, I think, that he was not getting the most out of any of his
02:42players. They were a mess offensively, a mess defensively, a mess special teams wise,
02:48undisciplined. Like so many areas where it didn't look like the coaching was getting through to the
02:53players. It didn't look like he was getting the best out of the players. And anytime that happens
02:58and you're running 500 or below, and you're getting close to Thanksgiving when it's kind
03:04of nut cutting time as far as whether you're going to make the playoffs or not, you're going
03:07to see a team make a move. And I think, you know, in a lot of ways, Jim Montgomery is paying the
03:12price for players where they couldn't fire everybody and make changes there. So you make
03:17a change with the coach. So if your wins and losses are the same and you have loser points
03:23on top of that, that's what we call NHL 500, Larry Brooks term. Yes, I agree with it. Because
03:28it's not true 500. The way to be at sea level is to win half your games and have the average
03:33number of loser points. And so they didn't win half their games. They won fewer than half.
03:39Right. So basically they're 8-12. If you were looking at them, you would say they're 8-12 and
03:44not 8-9-3. More like that. Yeah, it's closer to that than it is to 500 in the sense of true,
03:50where are you really on the bubble? No, you're not. And they fell off. They were on the right
03:54side of it. Then they were in another. And I thought that the five on five game had some
03:58traction until Hampus Lindholm blocked that shot, went out of the lineup. And then it just seemed
04:03like the boat was springing leaks every different way. It was something different every night,
04:06two shorthanded goals, yada, yada. And here we are. Yeah. And, you know, Don Sweeney, I
04:16appreciate the things that he said and the sentiments that he has in these situations.
04:21He stood there for a good 20-25 minutes answering questions after the move,
04:27answered everything that came his way. Tough questions. It was pretty upfront and transparent,
04:34I thought, about everything that went on, basically saying that they had made offers to
04:39Jim Montgomery for contracts, which I'm sure were kind of lowball offers or less money than
04:43Montgomery thought he deserved in the summertime to get him to agree to an extension. He did not
04:48agree to that extension. And so they went into the year without a contract. At a certain point,
04:56though, if you're Jim Montgomery and you want to keep this job and you want to have that security
04:59going into a lame duck year, you're going to agree to a contract, even if it's lowball, because,
05:03you know, otherwise, what's happened is going to happen. You're not going to have the hammer
05:09once the season starts. If you're a lame duck coach, the players know you're in that situation
05:13and it's going to be really difficult for you to keep things together and to have the kind of
05:18authority voice that you would have if you had years on your contract. And I think, you know,
05:24maybe he underestimated how difficult that was going to be. Maybe he just felt like he's going
05:29to get other job offers and things will be out there for him if he leaves Boston.
05:34It's interesting. I'll be interested to hear his sort of like logic or what he was thinking
05:39in making sort of that decision to go into the year as a lame duck. You know, all of that is
05:45interesting. But I thought so, too. That was that was the most curious moment of the day,
05:50was him saying that we're unsuccessful and trying to get an extension done. Imagine had they been
05:56successful. Then what? You know, so because this situation would have been a real pickle.
06:01Well, look, Mick, though, like in these negotiations, sometimes if you're the man,
06:05if you're management, right, you know that you're let's say they gave him like a 2% raise or
06:11something, you know, from what he was making before. Let's say it was a minimal nominal
06:16raise over what he was making, which I think his original contract was very low money
06:22from NHL head coaching standards. So management probably knew he wasn't going to accept that
06:28contract offer based on what it was. But it gives them the ability to say, hey, we made a contract
06:34offer. We wanted to keep him so they don't seem like the bad guys that weren't interested in
06:38keeping Montgomery and kind of setting up this situation. So it may be semantics on some level
06:45when you look at contract negotiations and, you know, them just being able to say, hey,
06:49we you know, we made offers. He didn't want to accept them, whatever. But, you know, I also think
06:56like clearly they didn't give him a huge money offer to try to keep him because they had questions
07:01about him as far as the penalties and the lack of discipline that's been going on the last couple
07:06of years, the lack of impressive performance in the playoffs. You know, the some of the things
07:11that were going on, I think they still had questions about Jim Montgomery and whether he
07:15was the long term guy. And I'm sure that colored negotiations and is part of the reason we saw
07:21what happened, you know, over the summer and going into this year. But but the end of the day,
07:26if you cover the NHL long enough and you cover pro sports in general long enough,
07:31unless it's like Paul Maurice going into this season without a contract beyond this year,
07:36having coming off a Stanley Cup year, knowing it's based on him just wanting to come back and
07:40it's going to get done. Anything short of that, if you go into the season as a coach and you're in
07:45the last year of your deal and you're a lame duck, it's setting up for a really bad situation
07:49for you. And it's really difficult to be able to perform and to do your job as best you can
07:54under those kind of situations. I tend to think that Monty must have just figured I deserve better
08:00considering how I knocked. He gave me an all star lineup and I knocked it out of the park to
08:06historic proportions. Yep. Then you gave me a team with no top six centerman established players
08:14in that role. And I gave you contention for the president's trophy and the division for most of
08:20the season. And we won a series. And so I think he was probably thinking, come on, you guys got to do
08:28better than this. And and I from there and I got to give some credence to what you just said about
08:34your thing with the penalties and the too many men on the ice. When you asked Donnie that yesterday,
08:39he really hung his head and shook it and really kind of felt like, well, you've hit on something
08:45here. Yeah. And and I realized that, you know, I know that you've been bad and banged this drum
08:52quite a bit in this podcast. And and I've always kind of figured, oh, give it some time. It'll
08:57flatten out. So I haven't really you know, I haven't stopped on one foot and clapped as you've
09:01done so. But I realized that you have a better point than I've been giving you credit for.
09:08Well, thank you, Mick. I appreciate it. But I like it's pretty obvious when you coach.
09:15I think when you start coaching even kids and you see some of the stuff that the players are doing,
09:20you're like, all right, if you have control of the players and you have control of the room,
09:25they're not going to do some of the stuff that they're doing here. And that's one of the first
09:27ways you're going to see it. And they feel like they can just do whatever they want out there and
09:31make all these mistakes. And there's clearly no accountability for it. And they don't care
09:35or worried about the aftermath of what's going to happen when they're taking all these offensive
09:39zone penalties. Like the perfect example. And I told you this was and he is funny that Don Sweeney
09:44used Marcian taking a penalty against Calgary as an example of something where he had to put him,
09:48pull him aside and be like, look, you can't do that. A, the GM shouldn't have to do that. That's
09:52the coach's job to do that. And he should be doing that. And the fact that the GM had to do that
09:56says something about the coach not being, uh, uh, you know, not doing his job as far as
10:02accountability goes with the players to the best of his ability. But like the, the, the, the hockey
10:07person that I talked to rolled their eyes about how the Bruins players all talked about like,
10:13you know, discipline and not taking penalties and it needs to be better. And then the next,
10:18very next game, David Pospinek takes an offensive zone penalty, like nine seconds into the game.
10:23That's been pasta this year, but it's, it's been the Bruins in general. You know what I mean? And
10:28that tells you right there that there is no fear of, of, of retribution from the coaching staff
10:34with the players when they do stupid things like this, you know, when they, I don't think they're
10:38cognizant of that, but I do think it's very important. I think that subconsciously there's
10:45an urgency level that a coach has control of a team. Like when a team makes a big trade and
10:52all of a sudden everybody wakes up and says, that could have been me and I might be next.
10:56I think that that all of a sudden the coach has the team. And, and I think that the Bruins are
11:01in a situation, it's like, that's like the ultimate stage. The middling stage is just good
11:06discipline. The Bruins were in that below stage, like the kind where how many hundreds of high
11:11school games have you and I covered for newspapers over our years. And you go there and you see a
11:16team that's just completely undisciplined, fair or unfair, it's a reflection on the coach.
11:21Of course. Of course. And like, I felt like that all along. It's one of the, it's one of
11:26several things that you watch and you're like, that's on the coaching staff. Like that is,
11:31it's on the players obviously, but it's also on the coaching staff to not get them to stop doing
11:35that and to get that straightened out. That's on the coaches to do. Otherwise it's a poor reflection
11:40on them. Just like special teams at the end of the day is on the coaches. Like it's on the players
11:45to execute, no question, but it's also on the coaches to come up with like an adjustment or
11:50come up with a strategy that's going to straighten things out and at both ends. And none of that was
11:55happening. So like, there's, there's like two or three things where you're watching all year and
11:59you're like, that's coaching. Like that is what you're looking for. The other part is getting
12:03the best out of your players. Like it's squeezing the best out of your players. That's another thing
12:08that's on coaching. Like it's certainly it's on the players too, but it's on the coaches to get
12:13the best out of the players and to get the maximum performance they can out of the players by
12:16whatever means they have to use. And across the board, there wasn't a single player that I think
12:21was at their highest level. You know, there was a few players, Hampus Lindholm's one of them,
12:25I thought were playing pretty well and doing okay and certainly playing close to their potential.
12:30And I thought he was one of the best players in the first two months of the season.
12:33Yeah. Zaka, Zaka as well.
12:35Yeah. Well, Zaka wasn't, yeah, but Zaka wasn't finishing enough, I think, but he was, he was
12:40I felt like his tenacity and effort was, was sort of exemplary.
12:46During the worst of times. Yeah. And, and I felt like he was getting,
12:50I think the best chances of like a lot of the Bruins forwards quite a bit, you know.
12:54Yeah. Because he generated them. Yeah. I just, I was really impressed with his game
12:58when, when so many others were failing and I felt like guys were coming along, you know, I mean,
13:03obviously, Swayman went back to having some serious hiccups after his game looked like it had
13:11progressed back towards something closer to his representative level. Yeah. And then, you know,
13:19Morgan Geeky just seemed to me like he was stuck in thought, like he couldn't play,
13:23he couldn't move his feet, he could, he couldn't decide what he was supposed to be doing out there.
13:27Yeah. And to a lesser degree,
13:29I felt like they both improved, Geeky more dramatically, but then it just seemed like
13:35once Lindholm went down, something happened in the mind of the team where every night it was
13:40something different. It was like, the boat kept springing leaks and it could be like,
13:45they can't kill a penalty that gets going on to a shorthanded twice in the power play.
13:49Yeah. It's like a bad goaltending night,
13:52you know, it's just like every night it was something. And at the end of the day, even
13:56though I thought the five on five game had come along, I just thought then was the injuries and,
14:02and Monty couldn't outrun it. And they ought to be thinking about what about the rest of the season?
14:06Are we going to let this, all this investment in this roster just go down, you know, once they
14:12realized, Hey, we're 20 games in here. I thought it would have happened sooner. I would have done
14:18it sooner. They didn't, they went to 20 and decided this is it.
14:22Yeah. And I, you know, Don Sweeney is a very deliberate guy. I think he thinks things out.
14:28He measures, you know, three times before he cuts kind of guy, you know, he's, he's very
14:33deliberate with his decisions. And I think that's a good thing. And I don't think he wanted to rush
14:38it or panic the decision. Cause I don't think he wanted to fire Montgomery. I take him for his
14:41word. I believe him that he really didn't want to do what he had to do, but he felt like it was
14:46the necessary move at this point. And I agree with him. I think it's the move you had to make
14:51to get, give this team a jolts to see if they can respond. And it was, you know, the time to do it.
14:58But I also think, you know, I think sometimes make you give the players more credit than they
15:06should be getting in certain instances. Sometimes I give them less. I think sometimes you give them
15:11more and like the Morgan geeky thing. I think he's one of those players that Don Sweeney was
15:15talking about yesterday when he said, some players think they're better. They, you know,
15:20think they had good years last year and think that it's going to be easier for them and they don't
15:24have to work quite as hard or do what they did previously to have success. And I think that has
15:30bled into like a lot of what we've seen this year is not the same level of work, not the same level
15:35of intensity, not the same level of urgency. And I think Morgan geeky is one of those guys. He was
15:40all about like his success. The bedrock of his game is based on second and third effort on pucks
15:45being a hard skill, you know, being a guy that like, we'll hang onto. It doesn't look pretty,
15:50but somehow gets through traffic and defenders follows him even though, yeah, even though he
15:55doesn't look dazzling, he's able to overpower guys and he's able to use his tenacity and his
16:00strength and his heaviness on the puck to get through and to make plays happen. And he gets
16:04in front of the net a lot and he does a lot of these different things. And he was going away
16:08from that and that he was not that guy at the beginning of the year. And I don't think he was
16:11thinking, I just think he wasn't working as hard. And I think there's a bunch of players in there
16:14that were not working at the level that they were last year. And that's part of what we've seen.
16:19And it was more than one guy. I think it was a whole group of them that did not come with the
16:24same mentality this year that they had last year. And I think it really has been a problem. And
16:28again, I think that goes back to coaching. I think they, I think this is my theory. Okay.
16:34Jim Montgomery, I feel like is, was like the rebound girlfriend of NHL coaches after Bruce
16:40Cassidy. Okay. Bruce Cassidy was hard. He was mean. He was tough on the players. The players
16:45didn't want it anymore. And they wanted a nice guy with a soft touch that was going to be a
16:50player's coach and give them a pat on the butt and tell them they're doing great and go back out
16:53there. And it worked for a little while, especially when Bergeron was still here. It worked because
16:58Bergeron was kind of a player coach. I think he had that level of respect in the room where they
17:05were going to do right just because Bergie was there and he was watching and he was going to
17:08make sure that they were doing what they needed to do. And that was a big help to Montgomery
17:13in that first year. But I think as it's gone on, you can see that the nice guy approach from
17:18Montgomery was, was not getting the same results. And I think when he tried to flip the dial and
17:25become a little bit more of a hardline coach that was trying to like motivate by like, you know,
17:29barking on the bench, uh, scratching guys, like doing other things, it was having less and less
17:36impact. And it was less and less impactful because I don't think the players were taking it seriously.
17:40And I think it just didn't have as much resonance with them, the more that he did it.
17:44And so I, I think he was never going to be the answer because he was kind of the rebound coach
17:49after Cassidy. And I think they need to find the guy that's going to be able to bring the
17:53best out of these players and get them back to where they are. And it's probably going to have
17:57to be a coach that's a little more of a hard ass and is going to kick them in the ass a little bit
18:00more than Montgomery did. And maybe they realize that they should have somebody a little bit more
18:05like Cassidy and the other half just wasn't going to get it done and push them over the finish line.
18:10And I, I think that's part of what we're seeing now is that I just, I've felt all along. I like
18:14Jim Montgomery. I think he knows hockey. I think he's a good guy. Um, I think he, um, is probably
18:20a very good, would be a very excellent college coach. If he goes back to, and I saw something
18:25today, maybe he's going to go back to St. Louis as an assistant. I think that would be great for
18:28him. Something like that. I'm not sure if he's a great NHL head coach. And I just am not convinced
18:34of what I saw over the last couple of years that he's like a special NHL coach, you know,
18:40head coach. I think, um, you have to have some other attributes that I'm not sure he has in
18:47order to be effective over a long period of time as an NHL coach. Maybe he's better as an assistant.
18:52That's more of like, you know, the sounding board for the players, a guy that keeps it positive.
18:56Like the role that an assistant coach can play with much more ease, I think plays into his
19:02strengths more than being a head guy where sometimes you have to be a taskmaster and a
19:06little bit of an a-hole, uh, in order to get things done and to get players doing what you
19:10want them to do. And that's kind of my sort of read on like the, the Jim Montgomery term.
19:15And as we move forward, um, you know, as to what happened over the last couple of years.
19:21Um, I don't really disagree with the theory. I think it's possible that they, that you're right.
19:28I think these are the kinds of things that unfold over the course of a career and we'll,
19:32well, you know, and then maybe later I'll say, yeah, okay. I guess you had it, you know? Um,
19:38I look at the geeky thing and say, okay, Seattle didn't protect him. Yeah. He comes to the Bruins
19:46and he knocks it out of the park. They are able to elevate him. And maybe because of it being so
19:53infancy stage of being a top nine NHL or going from rags to riches, so to speak in your career
20:02cache, that it was too soon for him to, to, uh, understand exactly what it was going to take,
20:11uh, in order for him to approach the season the right way. Um, because it's, it's, it's in him
20:16and he's had a couple of good games since, uh, since, you know, he got knocked out of the lineup
20:22there a little bit and, uh, humbled. And so he's got great hand. I, he doesn't skate like Jake
20:28DeBrus, but he's got great hand. I, and, and, uh, but, but he does what he does very well
20:33when he's highly motivated. And I think that this is going to be a shakeup that should bring out a
20:39good brand in him for the rest of the season. Yeah. I think that's a great point. And at this
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22:18game. All right, Mick. I think you're right. I think great points about the Bruins there
22:26and Morgan Geeky. And I, as I was saying in the prize picks read, I think you're going to see a
22:33big response for the Bruins. Like I, something was wrong with this team, the coach, the player
22:38combination, like something was going on there. I feel like where across the board players were
22:44not playing hard and well and as good as they can. And we're just making some really curious
22:50decisions on the ice and the way that they were playing looked unlike, so many players looked
22:55unlike what I usually see out of them that it spoke to me like something was going on.
22:59So I think we're going to see a much better Bruins team, a much more focused Bruins team,
23:06a much more effective Bruins team. I think we're going to see something similar to last year
23:11from this point moving forward, because A, I just think there's going to be a reaction to the
23:15coaching change. And I think it's going to jolt everything back into place to what it should be.
23:20And I think you'll see players across the board start to playing much more to their norm and their
23:25usual NHL standard. And I also think that, you know, we're going to see a team that understands
23:35now and the players that understand now it's on them. Like the coach is gone. Like you can't
23:41lay it at Monty's feet, let him take all the heat that he's going to get fired and be the person to
23:45blame for all these decisions, all these things, mistakes that are being made on the ice and the
23:49way that you're playing. Once that happens and the coach is gone, the pressure goes on the players
23:55that got the coach fired and the pressure goes on management that put that coach into place and put
23:58these players in the roster out there on the ice. And if they don't turn it around, both roster-wise
24:03with the players and management-wise with making decisions, they're going to be in the crosshairs
24:09next. Like the coach is gone now. The easy blame guy is gone. The fall guy is gone. So now the
24:15pressure is on everybody else to perform. And I think that's part of the reason why you're going
24:18to see everybody straighten up, fly right, and play much closer to what they usually play from
24:23the rest of the season as well. I also think that while Joe Sacco told us yesterday after practice
24:31that he is not going to be making any substantial system hockey strategy changes, it was already
24:39evident to me the aggression with which players were playing in incrementally in the system that
24:47they do have. For instance, five-on-five drill defensemen, if the puck goes to their side of
24:52the ice and the puck's in the corner, they darted into that corner and became fully engaged
24:59without looking to their right, looking to their left and saying, do I have a forward here to do
25:02this for me so I can go back and protect my patch of ice? So it wasn't reckless abandon,
25:10but it was definitely more of that resolution, kind of like the way Scott Gordon used to want
25:18the Providence Bruins to play. He never wanted a point man to have to look over his shoulder
25:23for support before he decides whether to pinch down a half wall in order to defensemen to pinch
25:29down a half wall to support the puck. He wanted them to do it on instinct and for it to be on
25:35your teammates to read that and be there for you. And so you don't lose that precious part of a
25:41second. And I feel like that's how the defense is going to play now, going to the corners.
25:45I feel like that's how the penalty killers, the high guys are playing when the puck point-to-point
25:52passes are traded. Those guys are darting, they're sprinting out to those guys to confront those
25:57puck-receiving point men. And so the Bruins are going to add a new dimension of hurry up
26:04to the opponent and challenge them the way the Bruins have been challenged this season
26:09all year long by teams that have been challenging the Bruins, not so much through great tactical
26:15decisions, but through just hurrying their game, forcing them to do things quicker than they want
26:21to do them. The Bruins are now going to really try to do that to the opponent. And I'm looking
26:25forward to the result. I'm looking forward to a little more of a North-South game. And I think
26:31that while Joe Sacco says he's going to take what they got and work with that, he said there will be
26:37changes, but those will come later. But I do see things already right now where gray areas are
26:44being swallowed up by aggression. Yeah, and look, the one thing I latched onto that Joe Sacco said,
26:51and to a lesser degree Don Sweeney said, or a greater degree, I guess, Don Sweeney said,
26:56Don Sweeney said, we are not a hard out right now. We're just too easy to play against. We're
27:00not a hard out when you play us and you come into the TD Garden, teams aren't thinking they have a
27:06long night's work ahead of them with the way that the team is playing. And Joe Sacco basically said,
27:11it starts from our own net front and on out in the D zone on out. And I do think Jim Montgomery's
27:18kind of an offensive coach. I think he coached them to hang on to pucks to try to make plays.
27:23I don't think defense was ever his strong suit. And I don't think that part of the game was ever
27:28like his calling card, like it was certainly for Chloe Julian and to a lesser degree,
27:33Bruce Cassidy, but the same, like they were both very focused on tightening up the defense and
27:38making sure the D zone was taken care of first. And I think they got away from that principle a
27:42little bit under Jim Montgomery. And I think there's going to be a renewed emphasis on that
27:47with Joe Sacco taking over. And I think he's a guy that is going to pound it in their heads
27:52that they need to play right in the D zone, make sure the coverage is good in front,
27:56make sure they're clear in pucks, make sure they're playing hard and being tough to play
27:59against. Like all the things that you have typically seen out of the Bruins that you
28:03didn't see as much this year is going to be back to basics as far as focusing attention on that.
28:08And I think that will lead to success and that will lead to the Bruins being better and being
28:15harder to play against. And that will translate into the offensive end as well. And I also think
28:20they're going to go, probably go away from a quality over quantity offensive philosophy,
28:26where Monty wasn't about the shots on net as much as he was about the chances that they were
28:31generating. And that would lead to sometimes less pressure in the offensive zone, less possession
28:36in the offensive zone, less creating chaos in the other teams D zone by putting pucks on net
28:41and watching everybody start to scramble after things get a little chaotic in the net front.
28:46And I think going back to a little more of that mindset of getting pucks on net,
28:50I think is a smart thing and a good thing to do, especially with the personnel that they have.
28:54They don't have a bunch of like playmaking Wayne Gretzky's out there
28:58on this Bruins roster right now. I think they need to play a little simpler, more simple
29:03offensive hockey, putting pucks on net, crashing the net, getting rebounds, like creating off the
29:08chaos when that happens. I think that's more of what this team should be doing. It's more of what
29:12the forward group is made up of roster wise. And it's going to be more of like what's going to give
29:17them success in the playoffs at the end of the day is playing that way as well. So I think there are
29:22some things here that I liked that I heard in those press conferences between Joe Sacco and
29:27Don Sweeney yesterday, that the Bruins are going to get back to playing more Bruins like hockey
29:31than what we've seen certainly over the last 20 games.
29:34Yeah, well my question to Donnie was, is it possible that the puck possession
29:43with a lot of passing game that Jim Montgomery coached, similar to Robbie Futoric when he had
29:49the team around 2001 to 2003, is it possible that this team is not a good fit for it
29:58without Bergeron Accreci out there for 40 minutes a game? And he entertained the thought and said,
30:06yeah, it could very well be the case. We'll see as we go along that this is hard to know.
30:12As far as the D zone goes, the blueprint that Paul Maurice gave the rest of the league for
30:17the Bruins in their zone D and doing the harder rounds and hemming them in and then getting
30:23changes against them and making it hard on the Bruins, I think that we're going to see that go
30:27away because what's going to happen here with more aggression coming, a more liberal approach
30:32toward that by Sacco's teams and defensemen going hard to the corners, we're going to see more
30:38successful plays by the opponent. We're also going to see them hurried and get knocked down and more
30:43transition for the Bruins. We're going to see fewer episodes of the Bruins standing in a box in one
30:49and having the puck go around the boards, around the boards, around the boards, and they're in their
30:53zone for three minutes or at least for a wasted shift of a top six line. That's going to, I think
30:59that's going to go away now and how it happens and how successful the Bruins are in making the
31:04transition and how revised pro scouting on it and seeing, I think that that's going to have a lot to
31:11do with how good the Bruins get this year. Yeah, I think it's all about adjustments now from what
31:15we've seen and what wasn't working in the first part of the season. Let's take a pause here to
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33:20but download the GameTime app, create an account, and use the code CLNS for $20 off your first
33:26purchase. Download GameTime today. What time is it, Mick? Let's get this in the picture here.
33:32It's GameTime. That's from my third Bruins game,
33:3869-70 season against the Pittsburgh Penguins. I like it. With a maskless Bob Daly and net.
33:45If only GameTime was around in 1969, Mick. I would have gone to more games, I can tell you that.
33:51That's right. All right. Do you believe, Mick, in your heart of hearts here that the Bruins are
33:58going to turn it around now in the wake of the coaching change? Yep, I do. But to fine turn it
34:06around, I think they're going to play a lot better hockey. Well, be a playoff team. I think
34:11they... Let's see who's top three in the Atlantic. Yeah, I think that that's fair assessment. I just
34:16feel like there's so many teams that have been one game north of south of NHL 500 so deep into this
34:22year that the NHL has gone from being a team with, you know, like two or three seasons ago,
34:28the Eastern Conference had eight 100-point teams. And now the whole league is eight and seven.
34:37So I think the Bruins won't meander there. I think it's amazing that they've been that good,
34:42that successful on paper, given all that's been wrong. And when you consider all that's going to
34:47get fixed here and the traction that they're going to receive out of that, I think guys will find it
34:52refreshing to play a less intellectual kind of a game and more of a hard, simple game. I think
34:58we're going to see some of that. And I think that that'll probably suit the roster better too,
35:03the changing roster here. So I'm looking forward to them grinding through the middle here and
35:10there'll be some ups and downs, but I think the hockey is going to get a little more palatable.
35:16Yeah, I think so too. I think you see it so many times. It started with Edmonton last year
35:21where they made a coaching change. We saw it certainly in St. Louis in 2019 when Berube took
35:25over. There are some situations where teams are underperforming and a coaching change just
35:32does wonders and it turns things around pretty quickly. And I feel like we could see that here.
35:38I felt like, and I think Don Sweeney has the same feeling about this Bruins team,
35:41that they are much more talented and the talent ceiling is much higher than what we've seen
35:47in the first 20 games and they've really underperformed across the board. And I'll
35:51be very surprised if the struggles continue in a lot of these areas after the coaching change
35:58with the jolts that they got from that. I just feel like it's going to reset a lot of these
36:04players and they're going to go back to what they normally do and how they normally play.
36:08And that's going to significantly elevate the level of play across the board and the results
36:14that they're getting. And I think that's what we're going to see. Now, if that doesn't happen,
36:19that's when you need to resettle expectations on the players, the team, your long-term view.
36:25That's when I think you start entertaining trades of players with not a lot of guys being untouchable
36:30players. That's going to change your whole worldview on what this Bruins team is and who
36:35they are and where they're going. I just don't think we're there yet. I think they're much better
36:40than they've shown in the first 20 games. They've played absolute dog crap, Mick. I feel like most
36:46of the time. And they're still only 8, 9, and 3. And they're still in a wildcard playoff spot.
36:52They're still very much in it. They're very much within shouting distance of being where they need
36:56to be and where they want to be. And they've played hot garbage for a lot of the first two
37:00months of the season. So I think that gives you a lot of optimism as to how good they're going to be
37:04when they get things straightened out and when they're playing a lot better and when players
37:08return to form. They'll be formidable. Yeah. So I think they're going to be a much better team.
37:12I just feel like that's going to be the case. And I think we see enough evidence of that,
37:16both in where they are right now in the standings and where they are vis-a-vis every single player
37:21and where they usually are as far as their potential and how they're playing this year.
37:25Let me ask you this. Tweet of the week from J.M. Flam. What's Joe Sacco like? Is he towards side
37:31of the tough guy curve? Brilliant tactician? Button pusher? Him being assistant coach sounds
37:37kind of like the Mayo situation in Bill Belichick's last year. Inevitable. I don't think it was
37:43inevitable that Joe Sacco was going to take over. I think he's the most qualified and it makes sense
37:47for him to take over. He's paid his dues. He's been here a long time. Why didn't he get the job last time?
37:52I also could see him as interim coach for the rest of the year and then they bring in somebody else
37:59next season and he stays on staff as an assistant. Goes back to kind of being the associate head
38:04coach because he's been here so long and he's been through a bunch of different coaches.
38:08I think he's a very trusted guy and he's a very knowledgeable guy and I think he's very
38:12well respected in the Bruins organization. I could see that happening as well.
38:17It was interesting to hear Joe Sacco talk about this yesterday where he was in his
38:22late 30s when he got his last head coaching gig and he feels like he's a much more mature
38:27sort of experienced coach now. Able to take over in a much better way and able to run
38:34things in a much better way and he understands both the X's and O's and the personal touch
38:38that's needed when you're coaching men in the NHL and building relationships with all
38:44your players in addition to the hockey stuff. I'm interested to see how he's
38:51going to operate. I think he's a very straightforward guy. I don't think he's going to play games like
38:55John Tortorella. I don't think he's going to be this like mastermind coach. I don't think
39:00that's him. I think he's a smart hockey guy. I think he's done a very good job with the penalty
39:04kill. He knows what he's doing, but I think he's a guy that I think will get the respect of the
39:09players because he's going to be very straightforward with everything and up front with everything,
39:13but he's also I don't think going to be a guy that beats around the bush or tries to blow smoke
39:17on anything or anybody. I think he's going to tell it like it is, which I think we could all use a
39:23steady dose of at this point. I'm assuming that he said he's going to keep the PK that
39:30Chris Kelly will keep the power play, which I always would have assumed that that was
39:35backwards. People think I'm saying that backwards. I'm not, but he said that I tend to
39:42think that his fingers are going to be all over everything that happens here in a more less of a
39:48delegating and more of an involved kind of a way. Not that you don't trust people, but that you
39:55but that this is a this is a crisis time of the season for the Bruins, and it requires this kind
40:00of attention until you feel like you got the traction you need in all of these ways. So I
40:07fully expect to see his stamp and little pieces of influence coming through here. He looks really
40:14chiseled, by the way. Joe Sacco looks like he's training to fight Tyson. When he was up in front
40:19of us yesterday, I'm thinking like, what's with all the bones in your face today? I'm thinking
40:24this guy does not look like a comforter. He looks like one of these, you know, warhorse coaches
40:29ready for it. And I'm thinking, you know, I mean, I thought all along that he was going to get canned
40:35as well, because he had been here forever. And Jay Leach, whom they were grooming in Providence
40:43and then lost to Seattle and now have back on their bench. And then maybe bring up Mugenel
40:47and give the Providence team to Trent Whitfield. I thought maybe something like that. And instead,
40:53you know, it's Joe Sacco. And I'm saying, well, did he want the head coaching job when Bruce
40:59Cassidy was fired? Why didn't he get it then? You know, I know I realized these questions
41:03didn't they really, really appropriate yesterday in the middle of that. It would have been they
41:10wouldn't have drawn favorable answers. It would have been those things that it's my duty. So I
41:14must ask. I mean, it's not that important. So maybe someday we'll find all that out. I don't know.
41:20But I was really impressed with Joe Sacco yesterday. Yeah. And he just seems like he's
41:25really mentally ready for this. He, you know, he feels awful about what happened, but he understands
41:31that this is the business. This is how you get your opportunities a lot of the time.
41:34Yeah. Paul, Smita Lavialette, funny story. He and Paul Maurice have been fired for each other
41:40repeatedly, you know, taking over the Carolina Hurricanes. Maurice actually started when they
41:45were still in Hartford. And Peter wound up, you know, Maurice gets fired. Peter takes the team.
41:50They win the Stanley Cup after the lockout year. Peter a few years later gets fired. Who do they
41:54bring in? Paul Maurice. He beats the Bruins in that second round seven game series at the Garden
41:59in 2009. And so this goes back and forth. And he says, oh, yeah, actually, you know,
42:04we get along great and everything. I said, do you guys just use each other's houses? He goes,
42:08no, we're not that tight. No, I'm sure there's a professional respect, but that's as far as it
42:16goes. You know, he's better friends with Cooper. Yeah. Yeah. That's pretty funny. Yeah. I'll be
42:23interested to see, too, who and when they potentially add somebody else to the bench,
42:28who that ends up being. Could it be an ex-Bruins player that's around in the area? Like, who knows,
42:36maybe for the rest of the season that that could be interesting if they go that route.
42:42I wonder if that's someone. Yeah. I wonder if it would be somebody that's more of like a power
42:47play, sort of like specialist guy, somebody that could come in that's more of an offensive mind
42:52and bring that element to the coaching staff. You know, Chris Kelly is a great guy. I highly
43:00respect him as a coach and a hockey person. I'm not sure he's the first person I would think of
43:04as the guy you want running your power play just based on who he was as a player.
43:08I would have just thought it the opposite of what it is. Yeah. Yeah. That he'd be the PK.
43:13But then again, you know, hey, we take ourselves seriously enough as far as the experience we have
43:19just as observers of professional hockey all these years and chroniclers of it. And so how
43:25much more should people who are in the trenches and sitting in those offices all day long
43:30know exactly what needs to be done here and be quite capable of deciding what to do with it?
43:36And I don't think the pros are looking to complicate anything. You can say that,
43:39Mick, but like they also had a horrible training camp and they're off to a horrible start. So
43:43maybe the decisions that they made this year haven't been the greatest and got them to where
43:46they are. So maybe they should be sticking outside the box a little bit and switching
43:50things up a little. I think that is there's a great argument to be made that maybe they need to
43:54like investigate their own methods and methodologies and what they've been doing
44:00because it didn't work this year. It's all under review now. Yeah. And that's the thing.
44:05Like as Don Sweeney, I will give full credit to Don Sweeney for always being accountable as far
44:10as saying, look, my head's always on the chopping block just like everybody else. And I'm always
44:14being evaluated. And, you know, he knows he gets it. He's been in this business a long time.
44:18You know what? If we get to the end of this season and this thing doesn't go north and
44:22they wind up missing the playoffs on the last day of the season, then he's 10 years into his tenure.
44:27He's exactly where Peter Chiarelli was in 2015. He will be idle playoffs in the last day of the
44:33season. He will have a team that's up against the cap and he will not have a good prospect system
44:39and draft capital. And that will be that is what got Peter Chiarelli fired. Donny Sweeney is like
44:45the pressures every day. This is the expectation around here. We're never off, not on notice.
44:52This is that sounds miserable when you think about it. It sounds daunting. How do you somehow
44:57give yourself a Novocain from that so you can think freely and operate and everything like that?
45:02These are high, highly successful professionals. Donny Sweeney went to Harvard. He's played
45:10hockey for two decades or, you know, he just he's been in the trenches. He'd been in the bowels of
45:16the Providence Civic Center sitting in coaches meetings forever and developing players. They
45:22are where they are. And it's no wonder that he's gotten a full decade as GM. And we'll see where
45:28it goes from here. Well, this season will decide it, I think. Yeah. But I mean, all that being
45:32said, I think he's also the most the winningest GM since he entered the league as a GM over the
45:38tenure of his of his him running the Bruins. Like they've had some incredibly successful season.
45:42There's very few teams that are that average 50 wins per 82. And the Bruins and Sweeney has had
45:48his own coach. Yeah. Has been 51 per 82. Yep. Not counting this season. Yeah. And, you know,
45:54like everybody's up in arms about, you know, all the Jack Adams coaches that have been fired
45:59since he took over. But those guys get fired, too. Like it happens. Like it's part of the business.
46:04If you're not Scotty Bowman, it happens. It's not the NFL where guys are head coaches for like 25,
46:1030 years and they stay in the same place. It just it's not the way it is in hockey.
46:14It never has been. Look at Mike Sullivan in Pittsburgh right now. Yeah. He's a great hockey
46:19coach. Very similar to what went on with Bruce Cassidy and Joe Sacco had that great year in
46:23Colorado. And now he says he's more mature now and understands way better what the job is.
46:27Well, Sullivan, Cassidy, a long time in between Opportunity One and Opportunity Two.
46:33And they finally get it. And look what those guys did with it. Yeah. How about if Mike Sullivan gets
46:38let go by Pittsburgh, a second return trip to Boston? I'm a heady on that one. How about that?
46:45I'm already having my social media debates with people. Are you suggesting to me, you know,
46:50they can't bear the thought. I'm like, don't rule it out. I mean, he's a good, really good hockey
46:54coach. Like he's not the warm and fuzzy personality like with the media. And I don't think he ever
46:59will be like he's kind of a straightforward guy. And I think he has loosened up to a degree
47:03since when he was in Boston way back when. Oh, God. Yeah. Yeah. But but he's a great hockey coach.
47:11Brilliant players like there's no denying that he is an excellent hockey coach.
47:17When he was when he was with Tortorella all those years, unfortunately, he got swallowed
47:22into the Tortorella identity. Yeah. And when he didn't know what he was going to do, he was a
47:26crisis point in his career. He went up to see Cap Rader way up in Vermont. And and and Cap called me
47:36after this visit with Sully. And he said, you mark my words, this guy's going to be the best coach in
47:42the NHL. I'm telling you right now. Yeah. And and he felt the same way about him when he was helping
47:48out and in Tampa. And and, you know, that this is and the reason is, he said, once he unearthed
47:57himself from torts and has his own identity again, and he had to go to the HL to do it,
48:01just like Bruce Cassidy did. Yeah. And and it and it came out. Now he said, I just feel like
48:07Pittsburgh's run its course. Yeah, it's run its course. And it just seems like nothing he does
48:12anymore. It just seems like that's unfortunately that's where they're at. And the Fenway Sports
48:17Group that owns them now is going to start parceling off like the expensive pieces and
48:22they're going to do it's part of the portfolio, just like the Red Sox. They're going to run it
48:25that way. So, like, I think that the golden era of the Penguins is kind of at an end anyway. So,
48:30like, I agree with you 100 percent. It's going to be really interesting if he free gets freed of
48:36that contract that he's in in Pittsburgh and becomes a free agent coach, like what could
48:41happen after this year is over. Joe Quinville's another one that I think would be an interesting
48:46fit here in Boston as he looks to break back into an NHL gig. Like, I do think like I really can
48:54envision a scenario where Joe Sacco coaches the rest of this year and then there's some like kind
48:59of full blown coaching search, you know, after the year is over, depending on how things go,
49:03obviously. I hope he does a great job. I hope they, you know, go on a run in the playoffs,
49:08all those things. If that happens, I think he would be the guy and then you're not doing it.
49:12You know, and it'll be it's great that he's getting the opportunity here to run the show
49:16and see what he can do. Just like you're mentioning with Sully and, you know, with Bruce Cassidy,
49:20he's in that same situation of getting at second crack at a time when he really like has figured
49:25some things out and is probably in a better place to coach. So maybe Joe Sacco could be in that same
49:31category with those guys of really figuring it out and having great success
49:35the second time around. So that will be interesting to watch. Let's thank our sponsors
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50:09What time is it, Mick? Game time. Game time. All right, Mick, thank you very much for joining us.
50:14Pleasure, Joe. Everybody else out there, thank you for listening. We will see you at the race.