Bruins in dire need of major shakeup before season spirals out of control

How many embarrassing losses are the Boston Bruins going to suffer before management/ownership makes the kind of meaningful changes this team so desperately needs?

The Bruins have suffered quite a few awful defeats this season, but none of them were as brutal as what unfolded Monday night at TD Garden, where the Columbus Blue Jackets earned a shocking 5-1 win. It was the Bruins' third straight defeat, dropping their record to 8-9-1.

The Blue Jackets scored two (!) shorthanded goals. Six Bruins players, including top-six forwards David Pastrnak and Pavel Zacha, failed to tally a single shot on net. Starting goalie Jeremy Swayman gave up five goals on 29 shots.

We could go on and on about what went wrong against the Blue Jackets and the previous nine losses for the Bruins so far this season, but the bottom line is this team needs major re-tooling, whether that's a trade or a coaching change or both.

Let's start with the trade possibility. Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman reported last Saturday on Hockey Night in Canada that the B's have been looking at potential moves.

“In Boston, lost again [Saturday] and they’ve definitely been out there trying to see if there’s something they can do to shake them up,” Friedman said. “There’s definitely a lot of intensity in Boston.” 

Friedman also talked about this topic during his 32 Thoughts podcast released Monday morning.

“I heard that one of the things the players have talked about is, ‘Look guys, there’s a lot of noise around our team right now and we just have to stick together.’ And the tough thing is, is it looked like they were out of it with that double-shutout weekend a little bit ago, but they haven’t righted themselves,” Friedman said. “But I’ve heard that that’s been the message, like, ignore the noise and pull together. And I think they’ve been active about talking about things out there. Boston is obviously a team to watch.” 

If the Bruins are active on the trade market, what should they try to acquire? A top-six wing who can score goals would be a massive boost. They rank 31st out of 32 teams with 2.40 goals scored per game. The power play ranks dead last with a 11.7 percent success rate. David Pastrnak is the only elite offensive player on the roster, and he's having a disappointing campaign by his standards. Their second-best offensive player is Brad Marchand, who is 36 years old.

Help up front is sorely needed.

Bob DeChiara-Imagn Images

The Bruins also don't have a ton of high-quality assets to trade. Their prospect pool ranks among the league's worst. Some of the organization's best young players, including center Matthew Poitras and defenseman Mason Lohrei, have not played well through the first quarter of the season. Lohrei tallied zero shots and was on the ice for four Blue Jackets goals Monday. Veterans on expiring contracts, including Morgan Geekie (one goal in 14 games) and Trent Frederic (three goals in 19 games), are playing well below expectations. Does it even make sense to sell low on these players?

The Bruins don't have a second- or fourth-round pick in the 2025 NHL Draft, but they do own all of their future first-round selections. But unless the B's are getting a premier young player in return, jettisoning another first-rounder in a trade would be a shortsighted move.

Salary cap space is another problem for the Bruins. They have less than $1 million in room, per PuckPedia. They used up most of their cap space in the offseason to sign center Elias Lindholm and defenseman Nikita Zadorov in free agency, and also re-sign Swayman. All three players have underwhelmed thus far, and that's being kind.

Even if the Bruins want to make a move, it takes two to tango. How many teams a quarter of the way through the season are going to be willing to part with a significant player? That doesn't send a good message to a fanbase. Only two teams in the league are more than four points out of a playoff spot entering Tuesday. How many sellers exist right now?

That brings us to the other way the B's could shake up the team -- with a coaching change.

Head coach Jim Montgomery is in the final year of his contract. He's tried just about every line and defense pairing combo possible. Nothing he's doing has worked on a consistent basis.

The easiest way to shake things up is firing the coach. And even though Montgomery is a very good coach, it would be hard to blame the Bruins if they made this move. Something has to be done, and Montgomery has been unable to get the most out of his players through 19 games. The team also lacks discipline (league-leading 91 minor penalties) and can't close out games (worst third-period goal differential). The same mistakes keep happening over and over again.

That said, Montgomery didn't build this roster. General manager Don Sweeney sacrificed speed and skill to enter the season with one of the tallest and heaviest rosters in the league. The results have been abysmal to this point.

And who would replace Montgomery? The Bruins are a bottom 10 team in so many statistical categories, so are they going to get that much better sliding an assistant coach such as Joe Sacco or Jay Leach into the head coach role? Leach and Sacco are not doing a good enough job right now, either.

The majority of the blame for the team's poor start should go to the players, particularly the top guys.

Pastrnak has scored two goals in his last 11 games. Lindholm has zero goals in his last 17 games. Zacha is on pace to score 12 goals after scoring 21 in each of the past two seasons. Zadorov (13) and Charlie McAvoy (12) rank No.1 and No. 2, respectively, in minor penalties taken by defensemen.Swayman's save percentage is .884 and he ranks 71st out of 75 qualifying goalies with minus-7.3 goals saved above expected, per MoneyPuck.

The Bruins are off Tuesday and will practice Wednesday. They don't play again until Thursday when Utah comes to the Garden. The first quarter of the campaign was dreadful for the Bruins, and yet they are still in the second wild card playoff spot in the Eastern Conference and sit six points behind the Florida Panthers for first place in the Atlantic (with two more games played).

There's still time to rescue the season, but major change must happen. Quickly.