Who's most to blame for Bruins' disastrous start to season?

Who’s most to blame for Bruins’ disastrous start to season? originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston

The Boston Bruins are an absolute mess right now.

Just when you think this team can’t play any worse, they give another lackluster performance where the exact same problems — lack of 5-on-5 scoring, too many penalties, etc.– crop up and in some cases grow larger.

The B’s hit a new low Thursday night in Carolina. The Hurricanes dismantled the Bruins in an 8-2 win at PNC Arena. The Bruins couldn’t generate any offense. They scored one 5-on-5 goal and another on a 5-on-3 power play that required an incredible stroke of puck luck to find the back of the net. The defending was atrocious. The power play (1-for-5) and penalty kill (2-for-3) were awful.

The players lacked energy, discipline and attention to detail. When you think of the Bruins’ success over the last 15 or so years, those three attributes were always there. The B’s have always been among the toughest teams to play against. But 11 games into the 2024-25 season, you’d have to rank them among the easiest to face.

For the first time in Jim Montgomery’s tenure as head coach, the Bruins are at the bottom of the Atlantic Division standings through the first 11 games of a season.

The B’s are 4-6-1 and have lost five of their last six games. Boston had a 10-1-0 record after 11 games in 2022-23 (Montgomery’s first season) and a 9-1-1 record after 11 last season.

So, who’s to blame for this disastrous opening to the season in Boston?

Here’s a list of the top candidates (in no particular order).

Jim Montgomery, Head coach

Montgomery has tried just about every possible line combination imaginable over the last two weeks. The only line that’s produced offensively with any kind of consistency is the fourth line of John Beecher, Mark Kastelic and Cole Koepke.

Montgomery decided to split up that trio against the Hurricanes and see if each player could help energize a different line. The idea backfired as Beecher, Kastelic and Koepke all failed to tally a point and each took at least one minor penalty. Two of the Hurricanes’ power-play goals were scored after penalties by Beecher and Koepke.

Montgomery also hasn’t been able to help this team create any offense at 5-on-5. It’s important to start fast when you’re a struggling team. The B’s did the opposite Thursday:

The Bruins rank 25th in goals scored at 5-on-5 with 16 in 11 games, while ranking 25th at 2.64 goals per game (all situations). The B’s also rank 25th in power play percentage (14.9) and 20th in penalty killing (76 percent).

We could debate how hot Montgomery’s seat is right now. The reality is he hasn’t done a great job this season. He’s also in the final year of his contract.

Montgomery obviously deserves a portion of the blame for the team’s struggles so far, but the majority of the blame should fall on the players. This is an expensive roster full of players who are performing well below expectations, and a lot of them are core players.

The only first-, second- or third-line player with more than two goals scored is David Pastrnak. He leads the team with six goals and 10 points. No one else on the team has more than three goals. Being overly reliant on one player just isn’t a winning formula. Only six of the 12 forwards who played Thursday night had a shot on goal, even though it was an 8-2 game.

Montgomery can only do so much. At some point, the players need to step up.

Don Sweeney, General manager

Sweeney deserves plenty of blame, too. He built the biggest roster in the league — literally — coming into the season. The B’s had the second-tallest and heaviest roster on Opening Night, per Elite Prospects. The result so far? A slow team that lacks the skill and scoring depth to compete with the best teams and — as we saw Tuesday against the Flyers — even the bottom-tier teams.

Sweeney hasn’t made any roster moves to help Montgomery and the team since the regular season began. Tyler Johnson played well in training camp and the preseason but remains unsigned. Johnson would be an upgrade over the likes of Max Jones and others. It’s also a mystery as to why top prospect Fabian Lysell hasn’t gotten a chance to prove himself at the NHL level. Lysell’s speed, great shot and impressive playmaking ability at right wing — a position of need for Boston — would inject much needed offensive skill into this group.

Sweeney has done a great job building playoff-caliber rosters in Boston, especially recently when so many core players — Zdeno Chara, Tuukka Rask, David Krejci, Patrice Bergeron, etc. — have left or retired. A lot of teams would go straight to the bottom of the standings after losing so much Hall of Fame-level talent.

But Sweeney is ultimately responsible for this year’s roster, and now he has to fix it. The Bruins desperately need another top-six and middle-six forward, preferably a goal scorer on the wing. Can he find an internal or external solution in time to save the season?

Charlie Coyle, Center

Coyle played awesome last season, setting career highs with 25 goals and 60 points. He has tallied 44-plus points in three consecutive seasons — the longest such streak of his career. Extending that run is shaping up to be a difficult task after his slow start to the current campaign.

Coyle has scored only one goal — against the Avalanche on Oct. 16 — with zero assists in 11 games. Furthermore, he has totaled just 12 shots on net in 11 games, and he’s been held without a single shot in five of those matchups. Coyle is not an elite offensive player, but the Bruins need 15-25 goals and 25-35 assists from him as a top-six center.

In his defense, his left wing — Brad Marchand — is struggling to score (more on that below), and he hasn’t had a consistent right wing on the second line. But there’s still no excuse for Coyle to be so ineffective offensively at this juncture of the season.

The Bruins are also struggling defensively with Coyle on the ice. The B’s have been outscored 7-1 and opponents have had 26-20 advantage in high-danger chances during Coyle’s 115:25 of 5-on-5 ice time this season. In addition, Coyle is winning just 42.3 percent of his faceoffs, which is the worst win rate on the team. He was at 51.6 percent or higher in each of the last two seasons. Coyle won just two of his 10 draws against the Flyers on Tuesday night.

Boston needs a much better performance from Coyle at both ends of the ice.

Brad Marchand, Left wing

Marchand had three different procedures in the offseason, so it’s not too surprising that it’s taking a while for him to get going. But as one of the team’s best offensive players, Marchand needs to be more consistent as a goal scorer.

It took him until Game No. 9 — an overtime win over the Toronto Maple Leafs last Saturday — to find the back of the net. His second goal came on a 5-on-3 power play against the Hurricanes, but it was more puck luck than anything else.

Marchand ranked second on the Bruins in goals scored last season with 29. He is the only player on the team other than Pastrnak who has scored 20-plus goals in each of the last two seasons. Fair or not, the Bruins need Marchand to be a 25-plus goal scorer. They don’t have anyone else on the roster — again, besides Pastrnak — who is capable of scoring at that rate.

Marchand’s 0.48 points per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 through 11 games is the lowest of his career. The only other time he has tallied fewer than two points per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 was last season (1.6). Marchand has zero 5-on-5 goals in 11 games.

In addition to not scoring, Marchand has taken six penalties in 11 games. He’s too important to the Bruins’ success to be spending so much time in the box for minor penalties.

Elias Lindholm, Center

Lindholm was signed to a large free agent contract (seven years, $54.25 million) over the summer to be a reliable goal scorer and playmaker at even strength and the power play. He started out fast, scoring two goals with three assists in the Bruins’ first three games. But since then, he’s been mostly invisible offensively as the No. 1 center.

The Swedish forward has tallied only one point (an assist on the power play Thursday) over the last eight games. He has not developed a strong chemistry with David Pastrnak, which is both surprising and concerning. Montgomery broke up this tandem at Wednesday’s practice.

Even Montgomery isn’t sure why the Lindholm-Pastrnak duo hasn’t been more productive.

“It should work,” Montgomery told reporters Wednesday. “Two smart hockey players, two players that see the ice really well, two players that can shoot and pass, two players that can skate. It just hasn’t materialized, so we’re changing it up.”

Lindholm has played well defensively. He’s strong on the forecheck and consistently is matched up against the opponent’s top-six forwards. He’s fifth on the team in hits and leads all B’s forwards with 17 shot blocks. But for the Bruins to operate at maximum capacity, they need Lindholm to be much more of a force offensively.

There are a lot of reasons why the Bruins power play is struggling, and one of them is that Lindholm is not generating enough scoring chances for himself or teammates with the man advantage. He has scored zero goals with two assists on the power play through 11 games.

Pavel Zacha, Left wing

Zacha has thrived under Montgomery. He has played two seasons in Boston and set career highs in assists and points each year, culminating with 59 points in 2023-24. He has scored 21 goals in each of the last two seasons after failing to hit the 20-goal mark in his first six years with the New Jersey Devils.

This season has been far different.

Zacha scored Boston’s first goal of the season vs. the Florida Panthers on Opening Night. He hasn’t found the back of the net since. His only point in the last nine games is a power-play assist against the Leafs last Saturday. He has produced just two 5-on-5 points (zero in the last nine games). This lack of production is unacceptable for a top-six forward. Zacha also isn’t shooting enough. He has registered only one shot on net in three of the last four games.

The Bruins don’t have a ton of quality scoring depth at left wing, especially when Marchand is struggling. They badly need Zacha to be a more consistent scorer, especially if he’s playing with linemates of Lindholm and Pastrnak’s caliber.

Morgan Geekie, Center/right wing

The Bruins tried many different players at second-line right wing in training camp and the preseason, and Geekie ultimately earned the role by Opening Night. Unfortunately for Geekie, it hasn’t worked out in this spot (or any other, honestly) over the first 11 games.

Geekie has scored zero goals with one assist in nine games. He has zero 5-on-5 points. He’s not shooting enough, either, tallying more than one shot on net in just three of nine games. He was a healthy scratch Thursday in Carolina.

Geekie enjoyed a very good debut in Boston when he posted career highs of 17 goals and 22 assists last season. He’s not a bad offensive player by any means. But if the Bruins are going to have the amount of scoring depth required for a playoff run, Geekie has to be part of that success.

Charlie McAvoy, defenseman

McAvoy has never put up gaudy offensive numbers. But he hasn’t tallied a single point in his last nine games, and in that span he has registered one or zero shots six times. That’s nowhere near good enough for a player with a $9.5 million salary cap hit who should be in the top 10 of Norris Trophy voting each year.

The Bruins have a minus-32 differential in shot attempts, a minus-17 differential in shots on net, a minus-8 scoring chance differential and a minus-1 goal differential during McAvoy’s 169:10 of 5-on-5 ice time this season, per Natural Stat Trick. It’s never a good sign when the ice is tilted decidedly in the opponent’s favor during your best defenseman’s minutes.

Jeremy Swayman, goaltender

The Bruins haven’t played well in front of Swayman. But the reality is he has to play better right now and bail out some of these mistakes. That’s what a goalie who ranks among the top 10 and is paid $8.25 million annually on average is expected to do.

Swayman has a 3-4-1 record with a .884 save percentage and a 3.57 GAA. He ranks 54th out of 71 goalies with minus-2.2 goals saved above expected, per MoneyPuck. There are a lot of Bruins players performing worse than Swayman, but as the No. 1 goalie, he needs to play a lot better.