It’s a new era for the Boston Bruins (9-9-3) as Joe Sacco made his debut as the interim head coach in Thursday’s (Nov. 21) game against the Utah Hockey Club. Sacco took over the lead of the coaching staff after former coach Jim Montgomery was relieved of his duties earlier in the week. The move was not a shock as Boston’s early season struggles have been getting worse as time goes on, going 4-4-2 in their last ten games entering last night including a disappointing 5-1 loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets on Monday (Nov. 18).
The tides may be turning, however, as the Bruins found themselves back in the win column with a 1-0 win over Utah, winning the season series 1-0-1. Elias Lindholm scored his third goal of the season, Mark Kastelic fought twice and Joonas Korpisalo stopped all 21 shots he faced for his second shutout of the season to drive Boston to the victory.
Boston’s High-Paced Energy a Clear Improvement
In the final games of the Montgomery era, the Bruins were a slower, unmotivated group. A lot of their game offensively was dumping the puck into the opposition’s zone, losing the race along the boards and retreating immediately on defense. This led to numerous low-shot games and the Bruins generating fewer and fewer chances. Right off the opening draw in this game, however, Boston’s energy was unmatched to any other game they played this season.
Related: Meet the Boston Bruins’ Interim Head Coach Joe Sacco
The forecheck and pressure on the dump-and-chases were significantly improved and looked like a playoff-type Bruins style of hockey. Mark Kastelic, Cole Koepke and John Beecher looked like the fourth line that was so successful at the beginning of the season, aggressively pressuring Utah’s defense and hitting everyone in sight. Each line kept that momentum going, allowing more shots on goal to come and prevented Utah from gaining chances the other way because they were so busy running around avoiding Boston checks.
Energy increases after a coaching change aren’t uncommon and may end up being short-lived, but as of right now, the Bruins visually looked like a totally different team than the Bruins of the past month. Even if the goal numbers aren’t where they’d like them to be, good hockey teams have to be able to win the tight, low-scoring games as well and in order to do that, you need to have the drive and energy for 60-plus minutes to keep the defense on their heels. Boston did just that and it worked.
Bruins’ Specialty Teams Look Stronger on Both Sides
Entering Thursday’s contest, the Bruins were among the league’s worst in everything to do with penalties. They led the NHL in most penalty minutes (233), had ten more penalties taken than any other team (101), had the worst power play percentage (11.7%) and 25th-worst penalty kill percentage (75.6%). Bringing in Sacco as the new head coach, many were more hopeful that all these areas would improve – even slightly – which would make Boston a night-and-day better team.
In regards to the power play, they only scored the one goal, but it was the other power plays that made it look even better. Excluding some tougher entries, Boston was far better at getting the puck through the neutral zone and into the offensive zone without just dropping it back to a trailing player. Once in the zone, they seemed to have more planning and smarter decision-making than previous attempts earlier in the season. Passes were a bit more crisp, more shots were attempted and Boston attacked the rebounds with more purpose. Elias Lindholm snapped a 17-game goalless streak with his tally that came off a David Pastrnak one-timer shot-pass to Brad Marchand allowing Lindholm to bury it in the open cage.
Elias Lindholm gets the monkey off his back after a month without a goal 🐵 pic.twitter.com/5IadZqFSTU
— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) November 22, 2024
Improvements were there on the penalty kill too, going a perfect 4-for-4 with a man in the box and for a lot of this game, did a much better job staying disciplined to stay off the kill to begin with. That energy level was very noticeable with only four skaters on the ice as they were constantly moving their feet, cutting off passing and shooting lanes to keep Utah’s options limited. When the chances did get on goal, Korpisalo kept the trailers out and helped prevent the man-advantage goals. It’ll take some time to lift those atrocious numbers from the first 20 games, but this is a step in the right direction.
Korpisalo Strong When Needed
It wasn’t a particularly busy night for Korpisalo, but he came up big time for the Bruins in this win. Utah had a few strong stretches, especially on the back of a power play, where they dominated zone time and had the Bruins defenders exhausted from being on the ice for a long period of time. Korpisalo looked calm, focused and on the ball, making the saves he needed to in order to pick up shutout number two on the season.
There were some preseason concerns about Korpisalo and how he would fare on Boston following his struggles with the Ottawa Senators, but with Jeremy Swayman off to an uncharacteristically poor start, Korpisalo has been one of the few bright spots on this Boston team and that continued last night. Finishing the game with a 1.73 goals saved above expected and some massive stops in the dying minutes with Utah’s attempts to tie the game ramping up was pivotal to Boston breaking out of this slump.
The Bruins will look to keep the train rolling as they head to Michigan for a matchup against the Detroit Red Wings on Saturday (Nov. 23) before returning back home to TD Garden for Tuesday’s (Nov. 26) game against the Vancouver Canucks.
