Joe Haggerty is joined by Mick Colageo to discuss the state of the Boston Bruins as we approach a completed month of the NHL season. After a devastating loss to the Dallas Stars, one thing has become clear, Boston can't string together wins. Why have they struggled to find their footing? Is Jim Montgomery on the hot seat?
💰 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!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Welcome to the #CLNS Media Network’s YouTube channel for Boston #Bruins hockey. CLNS Media is the leading online provider of audio/video coverage for the Boston sports. Get complete inside access to the Bruins at TD Garden, the game day skates at Warrior, and everywhere on the road. CLNS #NHLBruins' credentialed insiders Mike "Trags" Petraglia, Evan Marinofski, Conor Ryan, and Joe "Haggs" Haggerty. Providing instantaneous news and analysis all in real time, as well as full access to complete videos from the players, coaches, ownership and everyone else on Causeway Street.
For the CLNS award winning Celtics, Patriots, Red Sox, College hoops, NBA History, go here to featured channels- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiP7KyKodc3OHuN_XhEyPPw?sub_confirmation=1
💰 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!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Welcome to the #CLNS Media Network’s YouTube channel for Boston #Bruins hockey. CLNS Media is the leading online provider of audio/video coverage for the Boston sports. Get complete inside access to the Bruins at TD Garden, the game day skates at Warrior, and everywhere on the road. CLNS #NHLBruins' credentialed insiders Mike "Trags" Petraglia, Evan Marinofski, Conor Ryan, and Joe "Haggs" Haggerty. Providing instantaneous news and analysis all in real time, as well as full access to complete videos from the players, coaches, ownership and everyone else on Causeway Street.
For the CLNS award winning Celtics, Patriots, Red Sox, College hoops, NBA History, go here to featured channels- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiP7KyKodc3OHuN_XhEyPPw?sub_confirmation=1
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00Pucks with Hags is brought to you by Price Picks and the Game Time app.
00:05Welcome to another episode of the Pucks with Hags podcast brought to you by
00:08Price Picks, the exclusive daily fantasy partner of the CLNS Media Network. I'm your host,
00:15Joe Hagerty. You can find my work at joehagerty.substack.com. Subscribe and get yourself
00:21a premium membership. Get all of my NHL and Bruins writing sent straight directly to your inbox. I
00:25also write columns three times a week for the Boston Sports Journal. So check out bostonsportsjournal.com
00:31and you can read all of my thoughts about the Bruins, including what I thought about the 72
00:36debacle loss in Dallas to the Stars last night. Just a rough one for the Bruins. I believe this
00:44is the 141st episode of the Pucks with Hags podcast, everybody. And with me today is a
00:49longtime friend and colleague, Mick Colaggio. Mick, please tell everybody where they can find
00:53your work, my friend. I clarify the Bruins ownership issue in the next Hockey News Money
00:59and Power issue. And I blogged the Bruins at Rinkwrap and I linked to it on Twitter. And
01:06maybe Blue Sky soon. We'll see. Everybody seems to want to head that way. So that's it from me.
01:13Nice. Yeah, I'm over at Blue Sky too, Hacks with Hags on Blue Sky, if anybody's over there.
01:18Not a lot of people are there, so I don't know if it's really going to take off, but it may turn
01:22into something. But like for you and I, we, I think, have to stay on Twitter X, whatever you
01:27want to call it, just because it's part of the job that we do. We don't really have the freedom
01:32of choice that some people do to just migrate over to Blue Sky. At least I don't. But it can't
01:40hurt to have another social media account if Twitter continues to turn into a hellscape.
01:46So we'll see where things go as far as that goes. But we're not like Sam Kinison. We can't send the
01:51people to the food. Exactly. And just let's thank our sponsors real quick, PrizePix and
01:57GameTime, the good folks there. PrizePix, daily fantasy good stuff. And if you need any kind of
02:03tickets at all, concert tickets, comedy tickets, sports tickets, any kind of tickets whatsoever,
02:08go to GameTime. You get a good deal. Use the CLNS code. It's all good. What time is it, Mick?
02:15Game time. Game time. Use game time, everybody. All right. Let's get into it, Mick.
02:227-2 loss for the Bruins last night. They talk about building on the comeback win against St.
02:29Louis. There's a lot of talk about using it as a springboard for the rest of the season,
02:33of building on that, of using the good feelings they got from that third period comeback and
02:39turning it into something substantial and growing and good. And then they go out and
02:45they give up a goal one minute, nine seconds into the game against Dallas on the road.
02:49They're down 2-0 really quickly. They're completely outclassed by the Dallas Stars,
02:55especially in the second period. I think they were outshot like 15-6 or something like that.
02:59Gave up three goals, basically kissed the game goodbye at that point. And you had Nikita Zadorov
03:06after the game calling it soft, saying the Bruins were embarrassed by the Stars. Kind of saying
03:11like what more of those players I think in that room should be saying as far as self-reflection
03:16goes on the way that they're playing right now and just not even being close to good enough.
03:21But what I got left with after that Dallas game is exactly what I thought, Mick,
03:27after I watched them come back in St. Louis. I didn't expect them to come back against the Blues.
03:31They did a good job of beating the Blues. I thought the Blues kind of gave them that game.
03:36The Blues are not a playoff team. They're not a good NHL team. And I kind of felt like it was a
03:41little bit of a mirage and they were going to get slapped in the face with reality when they played
03:46the Dallas Stars, who are a much better team, deeper, more dangerous, faster, just a Stanley
03:51Cup contender, just one of the good teams in the NHL this year. And that's exactly what happened.
03:56They looked completely outclassed by the Stars and not ready to play against them when they were
04:02supposedly going to use all this momentum from St. Louis to start building some consistency in
04:07their game. So what are your thoughts after watching that Dallas game? And does it take
04:13everything away from what they did against St. Louis a couple of days prior? Because for me,
04:18it does. I just think that St. Louis game is nice. You beat a non-playoff team. They kind of gave it
04:22to you in the third period and you took it. So I guess you can beat those level of teams and you're
04:27able to do that, but that's not going to be good enough for this Bruins team that has much higher
04:31expectations than that. Credit to Andrew Graycroft for calling it at second intermission in St. Louis.
04:37Yeah, that's true. He saw it coming. The Blues were kind of punchy. That said, the Bruins hadn't
04:43broken through yet. They had nothing on the board. It was complete frustration at that point. It
04:48looked like they were working really hard, playing a good, solid, honest five-on-five game. Last night,
04:55I think we saw the wind go out of their sails. It was a little demoralizing when Hampus Lindholm
05:00went down. As much as they were in against a better hockey team, a more well-oiled machine as
05:05it were, they were battling back in that first period. But I do think that the Lindholm injury
05:14really got to them. I felt like the confidence left them. I felt like they looked more like
05:20the body of work that preceded the latest surge that gave us some encouragement as to the
05:28possibility that this Bruins team could gel and become something greater than the sum of
05:33its parts. For most of the season, it's been less than the sum of its parts. That's what you've got
05:40to be in order to be a cup contender is become greater than the sum of your parts. The parts
05:44have to be good, but that's what Dallas is right now. They look like a team that's poised and ready
05:49to make a run at it this year. The Bruins look like a team that, when faced with a team of that
05:55caliber, cannot be forgiven enough times by its great goaltending. The problem with the Bruins
06:04right now, and this is the basic 101 of what you see, is they make way too many mistakes
06:13with the puck, bad penalties, just self-inflicted wounds, a ton of mistakes and things going on with
06:18them right now that they can get away with against teams that can't make them pay. But as soon as
06:23they play teams that can make them pay and will cash in on those mistakes, they do and the Bruins
06:28look bad. The basic difference between a good team and a bad team in the NHL is the good teams
06:35will make you pay when you make mistakes. They will hammer you for it and they will pounce on it
06:40and they will be all over it. The Dallas Stars were doing that last night and the St. Louis Blues
06:44just couldn't do it. You could see the Bruins making mistakes in that game against St. Louis.
06:48The Blues just weren't good enough to take advantage of it. We've seen that a couple of
06:52times this year. The game that the Bruins played against the Flyers that they got shut out
06:59at home, the Flyers were desperately trying to give the Bruins that game and the Bruins just
07:04wouldn't take it. You could see it. They just couldn't pounce on the mistakes that the Flyers
07:09were making and it was incredibly frustrating to watch because you could see very easily that the
07:14Bruins should have won that game and they couldn't even score a goal. That's basically what I see,
07:21but there's so much within the game. The positive of last night, I guess, that lost against the
07:28Stars is that they didn't really take any penalties that hurt them badly when it mattered.
07:35They managed to play a disciplined game where they weren't getting sent to the box for offensive zone
07:40penalties, but they were so soft in front of their net. So many loose pucks around their
07:47net that weren't getting cleared. Bodies getting to the front of the net for Dallas.
07:52Quality teams can discombobulate them still. Even a better version of the Bruins that we've
07:56seen these last couple of weeks and they get in against a cup contender, then you can see that
08:03there's this kind of a scatterbrained kind of an approach that they have in their own end that
08:07they don't do singular things with conviction. Instead, they're puck fishing and trying to make
08:12sure they don't miss anything and sooner or later it's Lucy and the Chocolate Factory.
08:16Yeah, well, because they're just not strong enough in front of their own net.
08:20That's just a basic thing you have to have if you're going to be a good team.
08:24Lowry and Carlo minus three last night, Zdorov minus two, and still trying to do too much. I
08:31did like him standing up when Carlo got hit from Ben behind. I thought it was a bad hit.
08:37Certainly you don't hit a guy with the numbers. Yes, Carlo, it looked like maybe kind of tried
08:41to reverse hit him or stop away from the boards. Tried to brace himself but too far from the
08:46boards. Right, and Ben just like saw numbers and just threw him into the board. It was very Randy
08:51Jones on Patrice Bergeron-like. Yes. Without the ramifications. Yeah, so like Carlo, I understand
08:59why he might have been a little shaky in that game, but he was not good again and he's really
09:04struggled this year. I hope to see him come back, period. Yes, Lowry has really struggled.
09:11Zdorov has struggled. Although he got screwed, Lowry. If Cal McCarr made that play on
09:19Rabinov, then they'd be talking about what a great player he is and that would have been the end of
09:24it. Yeah, yeah, but I mean, that's true. Shouldn't have been a penalty shot, but that was just one
09:30sort of aspect of the game where they were going to lose that game regardless. Those were the
09:36asterisks. They were going down against that team last night and you kind of knew it. The unfortunate
09:41part about the Bruins right now is like, Mick, I 100% knew they were going to lose that game
09:45before the puck even got dropped last night. You just knew they were going to get roasted by that
09:50team. Yeah, even if you take the Bruins as progress and it's an uphill, even if you say,
09:57oh, you embrace the uphillness of the last couple of weeks that they're coming together as
10:01two more individuals giving a better account of themselves, the team's playing better as a team,
10:05they get their two-way games better, zone to zone. If you go with all of that, you still know that
10:10the progress level needs to be way far down, the seven exits away before you get down to where the
10:16Dallas Stars are playing. That's too good a hockey team right now to beat them at their present state.
10:22Yep. I did think it was interesting last night after the game that Jim Montgomery was talking
10:30about the players not executing and that that was the basic issue was lack of execution.
10:36This to me sounds like a head coach that's separating himself from what's happening on
10:40the ice a little bit and kind of putting it on the players and saying they're not executing
10:44what we're asking them to do, which is obvious when you lose 7-2, right? But it continues to
10:52feel to me like we're going through that long sort of like torturous dance of what's eventually
10:58going to be a coaching change, I think, with this team. And it's just a matter of landing
11:02on the spot of when it's going to happen, what the final like nails in the coffin are going to be,
11:08and sort of like what the stages you see a coach go through when he kind of sees it coming or
11:13knows it might be coming. And one of them is what he's doing now. Our Miracle of Julian doing this
11:18very clearly. Bruce Cassidy didn't because that was of a surprise that I don't think he saw it
11:23coming. I don't think anybody did. But Claude, I kind of knew it was coming, I think, towards the
11:28end. And there were times when he would do this too and just basically throw it at the players
11:31and be like, I can't go out and play for them. Like, you know, they're the ones that are going
11:35out and doing these things. And I felt like that was a little bit of the reaction from Montgomery
11:40last night. But there was also like, you know, it didn't seem like he was very animated on the
11:45bench last night either in a game where early on could have been animated about the hit on Carlo
11:52trying to get the five minute major and being on the refs about that. Could have been animated
11:56about what you're talking about, the penalty shot that maybe shouldn't have been a penalty shot.
11:59And it just didn't seem like there was a lot of life from even him on the bench either fighting
12:04for his team, which I don't take as a great sign either. Yeah, I don't know. I really go slow when
12:10it comes to trying to interpret the meta communications there. Maybe he was thinking
12:15his read of the room might be that we need to be steady here and he needs to not be kind of a
12:19roller coaster himself. I don't really know. But I don't. To me, it's just that their progress
12:27points are certain guys better than they were when they dropped the puck, better than they were
12:32three weeks into the season. Yeah, certain guys are coming along, whether it's Marci from his
12:37three summer surgeries or even most recently, Geeky. Yeah, coils of beauty. Carlo, I thought,
12:43was playing better. Freddie was playing better. Not great. And I thought that Zaka had really
12:51been their best forward for the last few weeks. And I wasn't surprised at all that he got moved
12:55to the middle when it happened, although I wasn't a little cut off guy when they did it,
12:59but it made perfect sense. And Patra is the odd kid out in a case like that. And he didn't really
13:06do anything to earn that demotion. But he makes his debut tonight, presumably. So I'm planning to
13:14go see him play. So but yeah, but but but I feel like it's it's a piece of progress points that the
13:22injuries, especially the Lindholm one right now is killing him. Speaking of Lindholm, Elias could
13:27have used a big game last night. I didn't see him. All right. Let's take a break from the show to
13:32talk about our friends at PrizePix. PrizePix is the largest daily fantasy sports platform
13:37in North America and the easiest and most exciting way to play daily fantasy sports.
13:42Instead of battling thousands of other players that could be pros or sharks, you simply pick
13:47more or less than on two to six player stat projections, and you'll watch the winnings
13:51roll right in. It's fun and it's super simple. PrizePix is the best way to win real money this
13:56hockey season, which players are going off, which ones aren't, which ones are lighting the lamp,
14:01which ones are trying to do the Michigan. You can figure out all that stuff using PrizePix.
14:05Make your picks in less than 60 seconds and turn your sports opinions into real money
14:10all season long on PrizePix. And don't forget about the goalies being red hot and standing
14:15on their head either. Don't get dazzled by all the highlight reel goals. Think about your goalies,
14:20too. Let's see a little goalie love in this world, especially at PrizePix. All right. This week on
14:24PrizePix, I'm looking at the hockey board and selecting Nathan McKinnon for more than point
14:28five goals and Evander Kane for more than one point five hits. Evander Kane running around
14:34throwing the body at people. Also, David Pasternak for more than two point five shots on goal. Not
14:39necessarily goals right now, though, because the Bruins are struggling and Sidney Crosby for more
14:43than point five points. You can now win up to 100 times your money on PrizePix with as little as
14:49four correct picks. Download the PrizePix app today and use the code CLNS and get $50 instantly when
14:55you play $5. That's code CLNS on PrizePix to get $50 instantly when you play five bucks. What could
15:02be better than that? You don't even need to win to receive the $50 bonus. It's guaranteed. PrizePix,
15:09run your game. Yeah, I mean, and what I wrote about today in the Boston Sports Journal was
15:15kind of like, look, the coach is going to ultimately, I think, take the fall for the
15:20players not playing well and what's gone on here the first few months of the season.
15:26But to some degree, it is on Jim Montgomery. I don't think he's been fantastic by any means.
15:32And I think the fact that they repeat a lot of the same mistakes in games is a reflection. And
15:38the same problem areas crop up. It's somewhat a reflection on the coaching and is partly to
15:43blame there. But the players certainly take the lion's share of the blame. You can't fire
15:47every player, though. That becomes part of the problem. It's a results business.
15:51But it is. But the other part of it, too, Mick, and you're alluding to it, is that
15:55a lot of what they did on July 1, the Bruins management is not working out either. Zdorov
16:01is certainly not playing up to the money that you're paying him right now.
16:06I think he's trying to do too much. I think that continues to be a big part of his problem,
16:10is that he's trying to be something that he's not. And if he played a much simpler game and
16:14was just this big, strong, tough guy around the net and in the D zone, that that's much more what
16:19they wanted and what they thought they were getting, what they should be getting. But like,
16:22to your point, Elias Lindholm, I think they thought he was going to be a setup guy for
16:26Pasternak and he was going to be able to play with Pasternak. That has not worked out either.
16:31No, exactly what they thought he was going to be. Max Jones and Riley Tufte were signed
16:36on July 1. They're both in the minors now. They did absolutely nothing. They did
16:40jack squat. Jones didn't have a good camp because of the injury.
16:45I think he may be back at some point. I think so, too. But to this point, they have done nothing.
16:53They were basically beaten out by a guy, Tyler Johnson, that was a training camp walk-on.
16:58Really, the only thing that has really worked out for the Bruins that they did on July 1
17:04is Cole Koepke, who has been excellent. I think he's played with the kind of energy,
17:09the kind of smarts, the kind of heart, the kind of execution, everything that you expect so many
17:15of these other guys to be doing. I think he consistently plays a really good game
17:20and gives you a good effort every single night. There's been not enough of his teammates that
17:25have done that. I look at him as the one guy that Bruins management did a really good job
17:30with on July 1 and has paid dividends for them. But so many other guys that they signed
17:34have not been even close to what they thought they were going to be and what they're paying
17:38for right now. Koepke's given a really great account of himself. That said, I feel like what
17:43he does stands on Kastelik's shoulders. That trade, getting Kastelik in that deal, to me,
17:49is the singular best thing the Bruins did this summer. Now, so far, when once Monty broke up
17:56the line to try to sprinkle the magic throughout the lineup, those guys have never looked the same
18:00even since being reunited and any version of two out of three that we've seen since as well.
18:06And Cormac Shaw has been good too, when you speak of that.
18:09Oh yeah, absolutely. He's been very solid, very solid. He's been as good as Swayman
18:14most of the year so far, if not all of it.
18:18Swayman is 5, 6, and 2 with an 8.88 save percentage right now.
18:22Yeah.
18:22But it's an indictment of the guys in front of him. He has not played well either.
18:27Well, I thought that he's had some great games that he never got any result for because
18:34he got hung out to dry. So it's a little weird. When the Bruins are out shooting the Stars in the
18:43early going, or at least staying even with them in shots, how many of the Stars' 6 to 8 shots
18:49in the first period were great A's? It's like four of them. Glorious opportunities that Swayman
18:55kept the Bruins from falling way behind in that game. Now, that gets lost in the long run when
19:02the game trickles away, when you get these goals a minute and 15 seconds apart or whatever it was,
19:08and the bottom falls out.
19:09Yeah. No, the Bruins basically broke in the second period of that game.
19:12Yeah, they sure did.
19:13They didn't even broke.
19:14They did. They did. And to the Monty end of this, the season started with a huge amount of
19:26returning players not playing anywhere near their normal level, much less really well.
19:33So for him to encounter that, and I feel like building blocks have been coming along,
19:40fits and starts, fits and starts, but I feel like more of those guys are a much better version of
19:45themselves and much closer to an average version of themselves. And I feel like that part's been
19:49coming along. The progress points have been coming up against a team like the way Dallas plays right
19:53now and what they are as a team, it's not even close. That said, it's a results business. And
20:01every time you think you've got momentum, then they have a game like this where they show that
20:06they're nowhere near what the Dallas Stars are. It was great that they rallied against the Blues
20:12and battled back there and took a game that looked like it was going the way of that game playing the
20:18first three weeks of the season, it would have gone away 2-3-0. There would have been a couple
20:22empty and there it is 4-0. So yeah, but at the end of the day, they did their big moves in the
20:29summer. You traded Omar in the summer. You signed Zdorov and Elias Lindholm in the summer. So you
20:35don't do the big trades now. You don't evaluate that. You always see what can your team do with
20:41a different coach if you finally get to the point where you say, we've got to make the change here.
20:45The season's going to, we're going to lose the season here. We're coming up on Thanksgiving,
20:49then what? So to me, we could have been there a couple of weeks ago. This could have happened.
20:55Could it happen after this game? You never know which one's going to break Neely's back or Charlie
20:59Jacobs' back or Don Sweeney's back. It looks like a duck to me. It walks like a duck. I feel bad. I
21:07love Monty. I just don't see it happening for the Bruins and enough of a linear pattern that makes
21:15me think that the management's expectations for this club, this roster they put together on paper,
21:22I can't see them going much longer like this. No, I don't think they can. I really do think
21:28it's a matter of time. Unfortunately, that's the way it goes sometimes.
21:36There were reasons that he had not signed an extension going into this year. I think they
21:40were not completely satisfied with the way they had played in the playoffs, with the too many men
21:45in the ice penalties they took last year during the postseason, with the way they weren't ready
21:50to play sometimes at the beginning of games. I think there's been issues all along here
21:54that they want to see improvement in and they weren't necessarily satisfied with to think that
21:59Monty's the long-term guy. The way that they've played at the beginning of this year, I think,
22:04has just cemented probably a lot of those thoughts and concerns about him organizationally.
22:11I just don't know how you can survive the way things have been at the beginning of this year
22:17with the penalties, with the bad special teams play. Then they address those things.
22:24This is a sign of a bad team. They have all these issues, they have these problems, and then all of
22:29a sudden you plug that hole in the dike with your finger and another one pops up. They didn't take
22:34any bad penalties. Special teams were not really an issue last night. Then all of a sudden,
22:39the bottom dropped out of their play in the D zone and puck management and how soft they were
22:44in front of their own net. It's like you're constantly trying to plug holes and there's
22:48too many of them and you can't plug them all. I think that's where the Bruins are right now,
22:53especially when they play against good teams. We say all this, Mick, but they're still in a
22:59playoff spot right now. They have 18 points. They're in third place in the Atlantic division.
23:04They do have three teams right behind them, one point behind them. All of them have games in hand
23:09on the Bruins, but I just don't see what they're doing right now as sustainable. I do think they
23:14need some kind of a shake-up here. I think, unfortunately for the coach, that seems to be
23:20the most logical place to go when they decide to go there. Unless they did the extension and they
23:25just don't want to tell us. Well, I mean, that would be like signing Jeremy Swayman to a huge
23:31money extension after he held outfall at training camp and he responds with an 888 save percentage
23:36in the first two months of the next season. I'm just thinking, what if they're saying,
23:39let's wait until we win five in a row and then announce it? That would be rough. That
23:43would be really rough. That would be a hell of a pickle to be in. Yeah, yeah.
23:47You know what team Boston sports fans are most excited about this time of year right now?
23:53It's not the Patriots, definitely not the Red Sox. I mean, there's plenty of Bruins fans that
23:59are very excited about the Boston Bruins, but I've got to tell you, I think the team that
24:03everybody's most excited about is the Boston Celtics. They're excited about NBA hoops coming
24:07back. They're excited to go to the Garden and watch the Celtics play, defending that World
24:13Championship and watching Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum and all of those guys that they've loaded
24:17up on their roster. And you know where the best place to get Celtics tickets is, to get
24:23tickets to the Garden to see basketball games? It's our friends at GameTime. Yes, GameTime takes
24:30the guesswork out of buying tickets by using the app, by getting your tickets through the app.
24:36It's the most exciting time of year for a basketball fan. Just look at all the features
24:42on the GameTime app. I love the all-in pricing. Toggling this feature shows you the total upfront
24:47with no surprise fees at checkout. Who hates, detests, I raise my hand, surprise fees at the
24:55checkout. GameTime is not about that. They are about showing you upfront what the costs of the
24:59tickets are. I am all about that. You can get seat views, get a panoramic view from your seat
25:04in the app before you buy the tickets. Lowest price guarantee or GameTime will credit you 110%
25:10of the difference. If you're looking for Celtics tickets, GameTime is the place to go. You got to
25:15take the guesswork out of buying tickets for the Celtics. By the way, you can get Patriots tickets,
25:20you can get Bruins tickets, you can get concert tickets, comedy tickets, whatever you want,
25:24but we're talking the Celtics right now. You can use all of those things at GameTime. Create the
25:29GameTime app, go to the GameTime app, create an account and use the code CLNS for $20 off your
25:35first purchase. Terms do apply, but again, download the GameTime app. It's super easy to use. Create
25:41an account and use the code CLNS for $20 off your first purchase. Download GameTime today for all
25:49of your Celtics and NBA tickets, folks. What time is it? It's GameTime. You mentioned the Patra
25:58thing. I am curious your thoughts on that because I'll be honest with you. I think that's another
26:03thing where maybe there's a little bit of a disagreement there. Like if you're Jim Montgomery,
26:07do you want to see Matt Patra, a guy that can be an offensive catalyst, get sent down to
26:11Providence where he can't help you if you're desperately trying to hold on to your job?
26:16I know he only had four points, but he was one of the few guys that you felt like could create
26:20something offensively and I thought he played okay. From an organizational standpoint,
26:26he's not going to develop by playing 10-11 minutes a night and sitting sometimes and being a third
26:31line center. Or in his case, being a right winger. Not a right winger. He's much better off going to
26:37Providence, playing a bigger role, playing bigger minutes. That's going to help his development,
26:40but it doesn't help in the short term. You win hockey games. So I wonder if there's a divide
26:45even about this and we're starting to see a break between the coaching staff and the head coach
26:51and management where they're looking long-term and sending Patra down because it's the best thing for
26:55him. And Monty could be like, oh, wait a minute. You're taking a guy, a piece that I can use
26:59and something that's going to help me win games and you're sending it down to Providence. And I
27:03wonder if there's even something going on there. Yeah, I hadn't really given any thought to that
27:08because it was Monty's decision to take Zaka and make him a centerman because he'd been his best
27:13forward for like two weeks. His tenacity, his level of compete, the pucks he wins on the ball,
27:19and the good decisions he makes with the puck. I can see Monty saying, I need some line-to-line
27:24continuity here. I need to be able to sustain pressure. This guy, I need to put him back in
27:29the middle where he was most of last season so he can give me that and affect more guys on either
27:34side of him. And then what happens from there? Well, Lindholm is going to be your other top
27:41six center. Zaka goes with Pasta. Let's see if we can get a better game out of Pasta that way.
27:44Let's just try it out. See what it looks like. Let Lindholm play with Marshy. Let's let Coyle be back
27:50in the bottom six and let him settle in and find his own personal traction as the captain of the
27:57bottom six, which he's unofficially been for several years. So last year, yeah, he was called
28:02to play in a different harder role and he did great, but nobody started the season very well
28:08here with the exception of the new guys. So to me, he's the one who did that. Patra's the odd
28:17man out in that case. That's where he winds up. So I'm feeling like he did that. Now, I don't
28:25think that's a bad thing for Patra to not be in the middle of this conundrum right now. I think
28:30it's probably a good thing for him just to go play hockey against men at a slightly slower pace
28:35and go out there and see what he can do in the American League and be a big minute guy every
28:42night. And maybe he's going to be back in two months. If I'm the Bruins, that's what I'm
28:48looking for. That's what I want. Well, you want him to be like Mason Lowry last year, right? Where
28:53he goes down for a little bit, comes back, and every time he comes back, he's a little bit better.
28:57And then the second half of the year, he can really help you and he's around for the playoffs
29:01for sure. And I'll admit, I was on the side of the ball that Lowry, let's leave him there for
29:05the season and let him develop, bring him up at the end instead of the yo-yo thing. I'm not a fan
29:09of the yo-yo thing. But I do understand that there were circumstances that bring these things about,
29:15whether it's cap compliance and injury, things like that. But Patra, let's see how he reacts to
29:22it. I think that he can make, it's up to him to make the most of it, really. And I don't feel like
29:28it's a bad thing for him. Jamie Krejci did it at his age too. He played a whole AHL season at his
29:33age. The tweet of the week from 19comid. Team is loose, slow, sloppy, drive-bys all over. They
29:43look out of shape. Easy to call out Zdorov, but except for Breazeau and I think that's Kepke.
29:50Is that 47 Kepke? Kastelik. Kastelik. Yeah, Kepke's 45, right? Right. This team is not giving
29:59full effort every shift. 88 is trying to do everything. 63 should lose the C. All right.
30:05That person is definitely fired up and unhappy about what they're seeing. They want to blow
30:11everything up. Do you believe that a team is not giving a full effort every shift aside from Breazeau
30:19and Kastelik? No, I see a team that's trying real hard to do the right things and trying real hard,
30:28but I feel like they get caught thinking when they should be skating sometimes. And I think
30:34that when you think you stink, a hockey team that's out of sync is basically like taking a
30:40bunch of really good ingredients in your kitchen and making a bad soup out of it. And I feel like
30:46that's what we got right now. And that funnels back to the coach and the coach is going to take
30:52the blame. Now, granted, a lot of the ingredients sucked for about three weeks and they
30:57started picking themselves up individually as they went along here. And they're all, for the most part,
31:02better versions of themselves than they were when the puck dropped. That said, this is how it works.
31:08And the Bruins have been trying to give this time to sort itself out in the name of it's early.
31:14Well, losses, even like last night's at Dallas, even though you weren't going to beat that hockey
31:20team, you're too far, you're too long a project to fix the Bruins right now
31:28to win a game against a team that's playing like that. That said, this always
31:36funnels back to the coach and it's a matter of how patient does management want to be
31:41that they're going to turn this around? When are they going to lose faith that they can get it
31:46turned around the way they are with the group they got, with the coaching staff they got?
31:52The year that Cassidy went to the NHL bench was the year that Julian lost his job. Jay Leach is
31:58there now. And where does this leave Joe Sacco, the associate head coach? So that title
32:07is a new title, but it's also pretty much acknowledges what he's been for different
32:12regimes and has settled in. I don't mean this in a bad way, but he's sort of
32:19becoming the Dave Lewis that was on the Detroit bench all those years. And is that what he wants
32:24for his life, his career? And it's an interesting juncture for his career as well, whatever happens
32:30Yep. No, I agree. The bottom line, Mick, I feel like when it's looked at
32:38in retrospect, when we get a little further from this whole situation is that it feels like to me,
32:43and it felt like this the first few weeks of the season and the way everybody looked, it looked
32:48like they weren't ready to start the season. It looked like training camp did not sufficiently
32:52get them ready to start the year. And it looked like none of the players were ready to go.
32:56And that is definitely a reflection on the coaching as well. And I think that might be
33:00part of like the calculus when you look back on this, that was like the last straw kind of thing
33:06is they just didn't, because it was team wide. It wasn't just one or two players. It was like
33:10the entire roster looked like they weren't ready to play. They certainly weren't ready to play
33:14against Florida that opening night. And that's understandable, I guess, because Florida is a
33:17great team, but it went like that for weeks. That's a big, so many personnel changes on that
33:23Florida team that that was a Bruins. They were like, they were in that, that was a headspace
33:28problem. Yeah. And part of it too, is the Bruins had a bunch of new pieces they were bringing,
33:33integrating too. And I understand that, but like integrating into a bunch of guys who are playing
33:38horribly. Yeah. They just, they just, they just did not look ready to play. The new guys were
33:43the best guys. I think that's the, yeah, that's the final indictment. I think for the Boston
33:47Bruins when it comes to Jim Montgomery at the end is like the repeatable mistakes and that they just
33:52didn't look ready to play to start this year. And it was a pivotal year for him, uh, from a
33:56contractual standpoint. So, uh, Mick, we're going to leave you there after that one. Thank you very
34:00much for joining us. Let's also thank prize picks and game time, our two sponsors for the show who
34:06we love and appreciate very much. Uh, you need any kind of concert tickets, one, uh, whatsoever,
34:11go to game time, uh, download the app and use it to go get those sports tickets, concert tickets,
34:16what have you. Uh, but also everybody else, uh, out there. Thank you very much for listening.
34:21Thank you, Mick. Thank you for joining us. My pleasure, Joe.
34:24Everybody else out there. Thanks for listening. We'll see you at the ring.