Bruins legend Mike Milbury joins! Recent success due to Sacco, or schedule? Thoughts on Bruins? #NHL
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00:00Mr. Milbury, good morning. How much snow, if any, do you have on the Cape today?
00:04Nothing. Well, we had plenty of rain last night and lots of wind, but just none of that white stuff, which is fine by me.
00:11All right. Excellent. Where do you stand before we get to the Bruins on the Ryder Cup and Tiger Woods telling guys how much they have to give to charity if they get their money?
00:21Where do you stand on that?
00:23It's time for Tiger to go away. You know what? What made him? Okay, he's a good golfer. What makes him able to dictate what other people should do?
00:33Yeah, well, that's how Wiggy and Courtney feel this morning. 100%.
00:38I knew there was a reason I liked those two.
00:40Well, win last night. This team is winning now. They made the coaching change.
00:45And how much of that of their success of late do you think has to do with a coaching change?
00:51Or is it just the convenience of schedule and the teams that they're playing?
00:55Yeah, well, I will get to that. But how many channels do I have to subscribe to, to be able to watch a local Bruins game?
01:01I got Nesson. I got ESPN. Tuesday night, nothing there. TNT, nothing there on Tuesday night. It's on ESPN Plus and Hulu. Give me a break.
01:13Wasn't it like Max last night?
01:15It's frustrating. It's probably an old guy thing though, Mike, or old person thing.
01:20No, it's a money thing.
01:22Well, yes, but Shine told me that I was ridiculous the other day because it's simple on ESPN.
01:27ESPN, I just download the app on my TV and I'm there. No problem. So I don't know.
01:33All right. Well, maybe there's something to be said for that. But I used to like it when you could just put on Nesson and knew what the game was on.
01:40Well, you preferred when it was on channel 38.
01:43And Greg, let's be honest. Shine's really capping because it's not that easy. You have to have a TV that has the ability to download apps or you got to know how to mirror your phone to your television.
01:53It's not something that it's just like that easy to do.
01:56Mike misses many one-on-one.
01:59I played in that. Last team to win.
02:02Talk about painful.
02:04Yeah, that's actually something that happened at Courtney's wedding.
02:08So last team to win many one-on-one, the railway where the East Boston Mustangs, the team I was a part of, I believe, was nineteen eighty nine when they used to be one.
02:21They had the one on one. Then it was two on one, three on two.
02:24Right. Last team to do that now. And now they do like half ice.
02:28Did you watch it from the bench? No, no, I was. You only could have five guys.
02:31So congratulations. Let's move along.
02:35I'm trying to live back my glory hockey days.
02:38Well, looking back on the Bruins and since November 1st, they played 17 games.
02:43They're ten and seven. And in those games, they played against five playoff teams.
02:48Not really stiff competition in the six of the eight games that Joe Sacco's worked behind the bench.
02:54He's there six and two, which is great.
02:56But they've only played against one playoff team and they lost that game.
03:00They're looking at a really stiffer schedule coming up in December.
03:03And I think we're going to have a better idea that having said that, there's a, you know, there's clearly a turnaround here of some level.
03:11How significant it is is remains to be seen.
03:14But you got to like the fact that they've they've started to win.
03:18Mike, what's that say about the players, though, where it seems like they're playing harder for another coach,
03:27the new coach than versus the old coach and the old coach, it seemed like was pretty good in the regular season.
03:33What is that saying? What's that mean?
03:36If I'm a fan that these guys just if they don't have the right guy behind the bench, they're not playing for him.
03:42You know, changing a coach is an interesting process and you have to judge it.
03:48It looked like they were stuck in the mud. That doesn't mean the coach was always responsible.
03:53Maybe the culture was just not the culture, really.
03:56The attitude, the way things started at the beginning of the season just conspired to make it a really rough start.
04:04And it did look like, you know, people were struggling and they're still struggling.
04:08The biggest the biggest problem about this team is its lack of offensive production.
04:13I mean, Justin Brazou has as many points as Elias Lindholm at the quarter pole of the season.
04:19That's unthinkable, really. But they've they've turned it into a little bit of a winning streak.
04:23And I think the biggest reason is their their structure defensively has gotten much, much better.
04:29But I really haven't answered your question. I don't know that I can.
04:32It's not I don't think it's an indictment of the players that they're not playing for a coach.
04:36I think they get stuck in a mental rut. I think a couple of guys maybe aren't playing up to potential.
04:41In this case, a lot of guys not playing potential to potential.
04:46And I think the general manager then made a decision. I don't want to lose this season.
04:50I think we need a new voice. And he makes the call.
04:54And by the way, Montgomery's not having a bad time either in St. Louis.
04:57I think they're 3-0-1-1 with him behind the bench.
05:01Mike, at this point of the season, Corpus Allo better numbers than Swayman.
05:04Do you put that as Corpus Allo is playing great with these guys or Swayman has taken a big dip?
05:10I think Corpus Allo has been the most pleasant and best surprise of the season.
05:15I mean, he was he was among the lowest ranked goaltenders in the NHL last year.
05:21And many thought this was just a throw in for money.
05:24But whoever made the call on this guy and thought that he could actually play was right.
05:30I mean, he made a couple of brilliant saves against Detroit that kept the game close and allowed his team a chance to win.
05:36Swayman hasn't been as solid as he can be, but I think he's been better in recent games.
05:42And I think he'll continue to get better. I think the whole contract thing played games with his head.
05:47And I think he needs to get past it. I think he will get past it.
05:50And especially if the team plays with the kind of defensive structure, which it's really that comes first in my book.
05:57You get hustling, you get checking, and you build out from there.
06:01Mike, you like Zdorov calling out Raymond when it comes to it being a man's league and trying to sell a slash?
06:10You know, I mean, I guess it's OK for him to call it out.
06:15I just like to see him play a little bit better, make some better decisions.
06:18And he's big and tough and he certainly can call out a guy like Raymond.
06:23But, you know, he's also leading the league in penalty minutes and they're not all fighting majors.
06:28Would you give Sacco the full-time gig yet?
06:33You know, he certainly has the qualifications to be considered a full-time coach.
06:40He's been there in Colorado and I know him as a player and I've watched his work as a coach.
06:47And I think I love his disposition behind the bench. There's no up and down, it's just even keel.
06:52He's sort of got a good demeanor about himself behind the bench.
06:56So it wouldn't surprise me if they did, but it's a little early.
07:02There must have been a reason why they gave him the interim name tag and I don't know what that is.
07:08But as time goes by, maybe at the end of this road trip, which has them playing five games out west against four pretty strong playoff teams,
07:17you know, that might be a time to consider it.
07:19Just on the coaching thing, you would have better understanding of this than maybe anybody having been a player, a coach and an exec.
07:25How much conversation is there between coaches and other organizations in season about potential opportunities with those clubs?
07:35Like, there's no way Monty just all of a sudden got a text from the Blues when he got fired.
07:39How pervasive is that in the sport?
07:42It's not pervasive at all and it's illegal.
07:45You can talk to Jim Montgomery, you could talk to Doug Armstrong all he wants,
07:52but he's under contract to the Bruins and they can't discuss future employment.
07:56It's against the rules and I don't recall doing it at all at any time except with my agent when I was a player looking for opportunities.
08:08But there was a pretty strong history with Jim Montgomery and the St. Louis Blues
08:13and obviously Armstrong thought he was far better than the guy that he had behind the bench and he made the call immediately.
08:20I don't think there was anything tricky about it.
08:24I think that it was set up to be this way, but it wasn't set up intentionally during the season while he was under contract.
08:30There are some, maybe considerable some, who listen to this show who express their frustration with the job that Don Sweeney has done.
08:37However, he was named the GM of Team Canada for the Four Nations Tournament.
08:44Does that say that he is really well respected around the league for the job that he's done?
08:48Sure it does. He's been manager of the year and I think a finalist on another occasion.
08:54This situation that he's in now, and I think we've talked about this, was the result of him pushing all the chips into the pile two years ago
09:06when they thought they had a legitimate chance to win the Stanley Cup.
09:09And push him and he did and we all thought it was a great idea.
09:14We all thought Orlov was a terrific pickup and Bertuzzi was a terrific pickup and Hathaway was a terrific pickup.
09:20They were good pickups, but somehow they ran into a better team.
09:25They blew their opportunity and he's paying the price for that.
09:28So I think when I look back on it, I guess I give him not a pass because the result wasn't there, but I understand why he did it.
09:37I thought it was a good move at the time and I think he probably deserves more time to correct that.
09:43What turned out to be a mistake in retrospect and get his draft group in order because that's where they're going to get better.
09:51On this show we've been giving Marchand a pass this season when we've been critical of other players on the team
09:56because of his age, about all of the surgeries he's had, so on and so forth.
10:03But two goals last night, does he still have that fight in him?
10:05Could he still play for a few more years you think?
10:08I don't know how much longer he wants to play.
10:10It's tough to get ready, especially when you're in the hospital three times over the summer.
10:17I think I had to work twice as hard when I was 36 near the end of my career to get ready to play, to really want to play, to feel like I could play.
10:26But he is, you know, he's a hockey hound and I think he's got another couple of years in him,
10:32but I don't think we can expect the kind of production we had in the guts of his career.
10:37Recently, though, you've got to love the way he's playing.
10:40I've got to love the way he says things as a captain that seem to resonate with me.
10:47If it's resonating with me, I would think it's resonating in the locker room.
10:51So it's a great sign that he's turned it around.
10:55It's a great sign that the team has won games and played with some responsibility.
11:02You just need to see a lot more.
11:04As I mentioned earlier, the biggest problem I see with this team is the production.
11:10They just don't have it down the middle to really make a statement, I think, deep into the playoffs.
11:16But, you know, there's plenty of time left and maybe time for Lindholm to figure it out.