Hot Johnny Beecher sits for Bruins in Toronto, while Brad Marchand … – The Boston Globe
“We don’t feel like he’s been on the top of his game like he was for several of his first 22 games,” noted Montgomery. “We just want him to watch and learn and grow, get ready to get back in.”
Steen, an energetic dynamo when he gets his legs moving, slotted in at right wing opposite Jakub Lauko. Morgan Geekie moved into Beecher’s No. 4 pivot spot.
Geekie, who scored in last Saturday’s 7-4 loss at the Rangers, entered the night with a modest 2-3—5 line in his 16 games this season. Montgomery would like to see more from him, too.
“I think he’s still finding his game,” he said. “We’ve had him on a fourth line, and he was on the third line, playing more minutes, so we want him to be hard going to the net, hanging on to pucks and forechecking well.”
Of far greater concern of late, as the Bruins lost three straight before Thursday’s 3-0 whitewashing of the Sharks, has been Brad Marchand’s lost scoring touch.
The Bruins’ captain, 7-12—19 prior to faceoff here, last scored on Nov. 11 in Montreal. He had gone eight games without a goal, the last five without registering a point.
Based on production alone, Marchand was the obvious choice to get a night off, but that’s not how conventional thinking goes in the NHL. Coaches never like to sit out the captain, especially when the guy is only 22 games into his tenure, and Marchand also has well earned the right to play his way out of his offensive funk. He’s done so repeatedly throughout his career, albeit with Patrice Bergeron — the guy who last wore the “C” — usually his center.
Bergeron is not coming back, although he donned Black and Gold again Saturday in a Bruins’ Alumni game at Warrior Arena in Brighton. Marchand opened the night here again on a line centered by Matt Poitras, and has ridden other times with either Pavel Zacha or Coyle.
All three centers have shown varying degrees of success when asked to anchor one of the top two lines. But just as there is only one Marchand, there was only one Bergeron. No one yet has emerged as a true No. 1 centerman.
It’s a long season, with 59 games still to go on the calendar and plenty of time for Marchand to figure it out. The answer will come when/if he finally finds the right fit with the guy who lines up immediately to his right.
Blue line’s cold
The defensemen, almost as if reading from last season’s script, have gone into a goal-scoring deep freeze.
Prior to faceoff here, the rear sixers had not scored since Charlie McAvoy’s power-play strike Nov. 18 vs. the Canadiens. That covered a stretch of six games and 18 goals, all of them off the stick of a Bruins forward.
Last season, in the 11 games from Nov. 17–Dec. 11, the blue-line crew scored only once, prompting Montgomery to urge his backliners to get more involved in the attack and, first and foremost, be shot-ready.
“I’ve recognized at times that we’ve struggled to maintain offensive zone time,” said veteran defenseman Brandon Carlo, who logged his 500th career game Thursday night and leads all current backliners for Spoked-B duty. “I think though that there’s going to be more opportunities to put pucks to the net, or be involved in the play.”
Another help, noted the 27-year-old Carlo, would be making better break-out plays from their own end, getting the attack in traction, and following aggressively up ice as a five-man attacking unit.
One of Montgomery’s mantras has been for all defensemen to be shot-ready. The fine print there is that he wants them all ready to fire, but to be smart when unloading — after first identifying a shooting lane or, often more important, a teammate in position either to make a tip or collect a rebound.
“I’d say all of us, if there’s a lane, have an opportunity to shoot the puck and get it there,” said Carlo, who began Saturday in lockstep with his career scoring pace with a 1-4—5. “I think you’ve seen it with some of the tips we’ve had over the last couple of years, that it doesn’t always have to be a 100-mile-an-hour slap shot. If it’s funneled in there, we’ve got some great guys with sticks, JVR [James van Riemsdyk], and Freddy [Trent Frederic] has got a couple of great tip goals this year. So just continue to have that net-front presence and hopefully tip a couple of more.”
Coming attractions
Following Sunday night’s Garden visit by the Blue Jackets, the Bruins will be off until hosting the Sabres on Thursday and the Coyotes on Saturday . . . Defenseman Ian Mitchell joined Beecher in the press box as the Bruins’ scratches . . . Ex-Islander John Tavares, with only another year remaining in the seven-year, $77 million deal he signed with the Leafs, began the night in need of only five more points to become the 98th NHLer to reach 1,000 . . . Ex-Boston College Eagle Joe Woll (8-5-0/2.74/.917) is emerging as the Leafs’ No. 1 goaltender, while designated No. 1 Ilya Samsonov (4-1-3/3.59/.878) has struggled in the wake of getting one year and $3.55 million via salary arbitration over the summer. The 6-foot-3-inch Woll, who departed the Heights in 2019 after his junior year, is 25 and still considered an NHL rookie, with 24 career games as of Saturday morning. He also is easy on the payroll, in year No. 2 of a three-year pact with a total $2.3 million payout. The contract for the first time this year guaranteed him an NHL wage of $775,000.
Kevin Paul Dupont can be reached at [email protected].
