Jim Montgomery is gone. It’s all on the players to turn the Bruins’ season around.
The Boston Bruins’ disastrous start to the 2024-25 NHL season cost head coach Jim Montgomery his job, and it is now up to the players to turn things around or more changes may be required.
The Bruins announced Montgomery’s dismissal on Tuesday. Assistant coach Joe Sacco will take over on an interim basis.
The amount of players on this roster who have met or exceeded expectations is quite small—perhaps four. Defenseman Hampus Lindholm is out of the lineup due to an injury.
It would be tough to pinpoint just one, two, or even three issues ailing the Bruins during their 8-9-3 start. The offensive is erratic and frequently non-existent. The goaltending has been terrible. The special teams have been among the weakest in the league. Boston has taken 91 minor penalties, the most in the league.
A steep decline
“There are a number of individuals who are underperforming right now, and as a staff, we are going to get it out of them. “I’m confident we will, but it will take some effort; it will not happen overnight,” Sacco told reporters at a press conference Wednesday. “But we feel we have a good enough team, good enough character in that room where we’re going to get it out of them.”
The Bruins’ entire roster needs to improve significantly, but which players in particular require the most improvement?
Here’s a list of five notable names.
Elias Lindholm, Center
The Bruins signed Lindholm to a seven-year, $54.25 million contract ($7.75 million salary cap hit) to be a No. 1 center who could drive offense for himself and his teammates. However, he has just been a complimentary player thus far, which is unacceptable for a guy earning little less than $8 million per year.
Lindholm started strong, scoring five points (two goals and three assists) in the first three games. However, he has remained invisible in the majority of subsequent games, including a 17-game goal drought. He has only four assists over that time.
Lindholm started the season as a first-line center, alongside Pavel Zacha on the left and David Pastrnak on the right. The Bruins hoped that this line would build an instant synergy and help Lindholm recover the form he showed during the 2021-22 season, when he set career highs with 42 goals and 40 assists for the Calgary Flames. For whatever reason, the synergy between Lindholm and Pastrnak has yet to materialize.
Lindholm has nine points in 20 games overall, with only three at 5-on-5.
“He missed a lot of camp, so he didn’t develop some chemistry with who we envisioned him playing with, and then they got off to a rough start and haven’t,” Bruins general manager Don Sweeney said of Lindholm at a news conference Wednesday.
“We bounced it around. They gained some traction in terms of their positions now that [Pavel] Zacha and [David] Pastrnak are playing together. Brad [Marchand] and Elias, but it’s not producing the desired outcomes. So it has to be better. He’s admitted it openly. It should be better.”
Lindholm’s problems have also harmed the power play, which ranks last in the league with an 11.7 percent success rate. Lindholm has not thrived in the bumper role. He has no goals and only three assists on the power play.
Lindholm needs to be more aggressive in order to score. In 11 of his 20 games, he has had 0 or 1 shot on goal. The Bruins are the league’s second-lowest scoring club, at 2.40 goals per game. Lindholm needs to score goals for the Bruins, who don’t have a lot of high-end talent on their squad.
After tallying a career-high 82 points during that 2021-22 campaign, Lindholm’s scoring has dropped to 64 points in 2022-23 and 44 last season. He’s on pace for 37 this season, which would be a third straight decline. If this trend doesn’t reverse, that’s a huge problem for the Bruins considering he’s signed for six more seasons.
Charlie Coyle, Center
Last season, Coyle scored a career-high 60 points, including a personal-best 25 goals. He elevated his scoring game in the first year the Bruins were without top-two centers Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci.
Coyle’s productivity has dropped significantly this season. He has five points (four goals and one assist) in 20 games, putting him on track for just 16.4 points. It would be remarkable if he finished the season with fewer than 20 points, but the fact that he is generating so much less offensively than in 2023-24 is a major issue for a Bruins team that lacks scoring depth, particularly at center.
Coyle is also below than 50 percent on faceoffs (49.2). In the previous two seasons, he won at least 51.6 percent of his draws. Coyle has been on the ice for 10 goals against at 5-on-5, the second-highest total among the Bruins forwards.
Coyle is one of the Bruins’ top two-way players. He plays in nearly every circumstance. In fact, he is the team’s only forward who averages more than two minutes of ice time per game on both the power play (2:44) and penalty kill (2:53). He needs to be more effective offensively and lead the penalty kill, which has suffered severely over the past 20 games.
Nikita Zadorov, Defenseman
On the first day of free agency, the Bruins signed Zadorov to a six-year contract worth $30 million. The veteran defenseman was expected to provide much-needed bulk and toughness to the blue line, as well as defensive skills, penalty killing, and possibly a little offense. He has the potential to set the tone with his muscular style of play.
Unfortunately for the B’s, Zadorov has had the opposite effect. He’s one of the league’s most erratic players, earning 13 minor penalties to lead all defensemen. He’s also had little offensive impact, scoring zero goals and assisting twice in the last 15 games. He has had zero or one shot on goal in ten of those fifteen games.
“We also want him to step up. On Wednesday, Sweeney said Zadorov had revealed pockets of it. “But he got off to a bad start by taking too many penalties and placing himself in the position of wanting to be an aggressive player, bringing what the identity of what’s been labeled as, and ending up in the box. And now you’re playing more hesitantly, and we need him to assert himself.”
Zadorov has a chance to be a real difference maker if he can set a physical tone and not go over the edge. He can’t be taking so many penalties. The Bruins need to be a lot tougher to play against, and Zadorov has the size and skill set to lead that charge.
Charlie McAvoy, Defenseman
McAvoy is ranked among the top ten most gifted defenceman in the world. He has the potential to dominate games on both ends of the ice, setting the tone for his club with powerful hits and strong play. He’s also the team’s second-highest paid player ($9.5 million per year on average), and he wears a “A” on his sweater as an assistant captain.
McAvoy’s performance in 20 games has been mediocre.
On offense, he’s unable to make a consistent impact. McAvoy scored in each of the first two games in October. He has scored one goal in the last 18 games. He averages 0.91 points per 60 minutes in 5-on-5, and he has never finished below 1.0 for a complete season.
McAvoy leads all B’s defensemen in power-play ice time (4:17 per game), but he has zero points with the man advantage since the second game of the season. This is a big reason why Boston is dead bottom in power-play %.
Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of McAvoy’s performance thus far has been his lack of discipline. His 12 minor penalties are the second most of any defenseman in the league. McAvoy’s presence on the ice is crucial for the Bruins. He’s an elite all-around player. Spending too much time in the penalty box is a serious issue.
Expectations for McAvoy are always to be a super impactful player at both ends of the ice. But with Hampus Lindholm out of the lineup, the responsibility on McAvoy is even greater.
Jeremy Swayman, Goaltender
Swayman has been a top ten goalie for the last three seasons, and with the Linus Ullmark trade in June, there was no question about who Boston’s top goalie was. However, Swayman was not signed until two days before the season beginning. He signed an eight-year, $64 million contract, becoming him the league’s fifth highest-paid goalie.
So yet, he has not fulfilled his obligations under the contract. Not even close.
Swayman has a 5-7-2 record,.884 save percentage, and a 3.47 GAA. According to MoneyPuck, he ranks 71st out of 75 qualifying goalies, with minus-7.3 goals saved over expectations. His.916 save percentage over the previous three seasons was the sixth best in the league.
How much of Swayman’s poor start can be ascribed to his absence from training camp and the preseason due to an unsigned contract? That is difficult to quantify, but it is also difficult to return to the fray as a goalie when you are not exposed to NHL shots every day in practice or during games.
“I think Jeremy would acknowledge that he hasn’t played as well as what he’s capable of playing and we fully expect him to get back there,” Sweeney told ESPN on Wednesday.
Goaltending has been the Bruins’ strength for many years. It has been a weakness this season mostly due to Swayman. Backup goalie Joonas Korpisalo, who came over in the Ullmark trade, has played well with a .901 save percentage and 2.74 GAA. Korpisalo has a .932 save percentage in three starts this month.
The Bruins are not going anywhere if Swayman does not turn things around soon. They rely on goalie to save them when the offense struggles to score and the defense falters, which have been two of the team’s biggest issues through 20 games. Swayman is being compensated like a top-five goalkeeper, and that’s the type of performance the Bruins require to not just make the playoffs, but to win a round or two if they do.
