Three Wins, One Message: Bank Points or Bust | Ep. 115

0:00 Speaker 1: Can you start a podcast with me? Please? I need something to do, all Jack send it out in trouble.

0:14 Speaker 2: About to this same next time tonight. Here's a chance PoTA right down on goalie scars, Oh my water move by the rookie. Do on one plaster not most.

0:29 Speaker 1: Oil dances.

0:30 Speaker 2: Ain't podcast?

0:32 Speaker 1: Wait at home? Right way, go faster agast?

0:40 Speaker 2: What is.

0:51 Speaker 1: Welcome in everyone to another episode of Ruins. Tape to tape. I will be your host today. I am Maria from Watertown. We are recording today's episode on Monday, November third, after daylight savings time change fall back, which I think absolutely blows. But I want to welcome in my co host, who looks nowhere near as tired as I feel with the time change. Caroline Letteka, how are you? I'm good, Marian.

1:22 Speaker 2: This is the time change I like because I get extra sleep, so I'm relatively arrested Dan the darkness.

1:30 Speaker 1: I went out and played a quick nine holes yesterday afternoon, and by the time we got to the ninth hole, the sun was already setting, which to me is obnoxious. I do not enjoy this time of year. But be that as it may, we certainly got We have a lot of hockey to talk about mostly good hockey, mostly good hockey. We are going to today talk about how we feel about Marco Sturm if he's pushing the right buttons. At this point in time, We've got a couple of injuries, unfortunately, that we need to talk about and the adjustments that have been made in the lineup as a result of these injuries.

2:16 Speaker 1: We also want to talk about, finally, the youth movement on this current roster making a little noise for themselves. Right but very far we dive into all things. Boston Bruins will take our usual spin around the rink. And I don't know about you, but it seems like there's not a lot of hot news happening right now around the league. Everyone's, you know, going about their going about their business relatively quietly. But there was a little scary thing that happened in the Toronto Maple Leafs game recently where Chris Tannev had to be taken off the ice in a stretcher against the Philadelphia Flyers.

3:03 Speaker 1: I read the report this morning. He's back home and resting. But you know, regardless of how we feel about any franchise and rivalries, the last thing anybody wants to see in hockey, is a player get stretched off the ice. Yeah, that was crazy to see.

3:21 Speaker 2: I didn't catch it live, although I know some folks in our Discord group did. I was watching the replay clip and it seems like it's just one of those really freak accidents because it didn't look like a particular, you know, crazy hit or falling to the ice in some sort of dangerous way. It was a mid ice collision. The only thing I can kind of speculate on is the whiplash kind of situation. And he has concussion history, so I can only imagine that that's what actually happened, because it's not like he slammed to the boards or something like that.

4:03 Speaker 1: So it's scary to see it.

4:05 Speaker 2: It's awful, quite frankly, when a player has to get taken off the ice in that way. So hopefully he recovers soon. And he just had come back. Chris Tannep had just come back. It was his first game back after missing several games from a prior injury. So again, you know, regardless of what color sweater, you know, none of us ever want to see that, so wish him well. The other piece of news is it seems like the Tampa Bay Lightning are the hottest team in the league right now, where they've won five games in a row, and you know, I know, at the start of the season when everyone was making their you know, preseason predictions, the Tampa Bay Lightning is a team that a lot of people have on their radar to be in the playoff mix.

4:56 Speaker 2: Yeah, and what was crazy is the fact that they they had a pretty horrible start. They fell at the starting line, so to speak, and they were at bottom for a little bit, and they've been steadily crawling their way right back up to the top. I mean, the pros and cons of this condensed season is you don't sit around and wait to see if whatever adjustments here and there are going to work. It's make the adjustment get the results from that pretty quickly. And I think Boston has benefited also from that kind of experiment because there's very little time in between.

5:38 Speaker 2: Granted, this means maybe there's less time for practice, but I mean it's more time for execution, and if you don't have a lot of time to waste. I think there are teams that are benefiting from this condensed schedule, just like Tampa is able to just make those changes and go from there.

5:57 Speaker 1: Right, And I don't think the Bruins have been one of those teams that's been able to benefit from that. And Cam Nearly spoke to that during the nests and broadcast during one of the games this week, and that the Bruins and the Calgary Flames have played the most games out of any team in the league right now, which you know is I'm not quite sure I understand how that happens. But he alluded to the fact that, you know, they haven't had a lot of time to practice and work on this defensive you know, structure system here that we keep hearing about.

6:33 Speaker 1: Hopefully that is going to start leveling off here in the coming weeks. We shall see, but every team is going to be subjected to this at some point this season because of that Olympic break.

6:49 Speaker 2: Yeah, well, so you know, to your point, yes, Boston doesn't have the time to experiment in a practice environment which is safe for However, they are throwing things out there and seeing if they're going to work in real time in game situations, and for good or for bad, at least they're not then wasting those precious few practices on something that might not then actually work out well on the ice during the game, so you know, a little pros and cons for that. But this right now is the longest I think little break stretch that Boston has had since the start of the season, which is is they played on Saturday, they had Sunday, well I don't know if they had it off, but there's no game on Sunday, no game.

7:40 Speaker 1: There was also practice on Sunday, I believe, and then well, there's a team There was a team event or an event that was together for season ticket holders on Sunday that the players needed to attend for a couple of hours, so I would imagine that they'll be back on the ice.

8:02 Speaker 2: Crap this thing, yes say, but ultimately what ends up happening is I believe they have three games pretty pretty much in regular like close succession every two days. Then they'll have another mini like two day break, and then they are effectively going straight every other day from November eleventh all the way through November twenty ninth before they have their next two day no game break, which is absolutely bonkers.

8:37 Speaker 1: It is every other day a hockey game, which not great for us either. That'll watch in all these games. It's nice to have a little respit from the game. Now, did I bite my tongue? Because come July and August, I'm I'm dying for hockey.

8:53 Speaker 2: So I have to remind myself this is this is this is good, this is good for us.

8:58 Speaker 1: And during that strict you just talked about it, will it'll take them out to the West Coast for that annual the annual road trip. But be that as it may, we did. We have had some good hockey finally come across our radar here. But before we get into that, I want to talk about the injuries that right have just occurred. So we'll start quickly with the Jordan Harris injury and the fact that he's going to be out apparently for at least a couple of months to repair a right ankle fracture, which is unfortunate because you know, I saw some good potential in this player.

9:49 Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it was huge his contributions. He was doing a really great job, especially when Hampus was out, and I honestly, I didn't cat what had happened to him. It wasn't even obvious that he had been injured while playing, because you know, play hadn't stopped. So either he was just in beast mode that all time, or maybe it was just one of those injuries that maybe it didn't straight up hurt in a way that kind of was alarm bells for him. But whatever it was, he got attention pretty quickly and basically immediately underwent surgery, which tells you that, okay, well that's a pretty serious situation and hopefully, you know, ever since Tory Krug hurt his.

10:39 Speaker 1: Ankle, I always get so nervous.

10:41 Speaker 2: I get so nervous when I hear about a player having ankle surgery because his Tory Krug's career basically has come to an end prematurely because of just weird healing coming from a an ankle injury. So finger across that Harris recovers really well, I mean he's super young, so you know, I don't know.

11:06 Speaker 1: Yeah, and I had him, you know, pegged for taking Masonri's spot, which he you know, I think he has the potential to do. And well we'll get to Mason Laurai as we start breaking down the week that was for the Bruins. But yeah, I hope that he will recover quickly and then you know, be able to, you know, get back on the ice to add to the defensive depth that the Ruins I think so certainly need, especially if you are going to be focusing on your defensive structure. The other big injury that just occurred is, you know, we get one lint Home back and the other lind Home goes out.

11:52 Speaker 1: So Bruins get Hampus lind Home back in the lineup and lo and behold, Elias lind Home costs out with an injury. And the latest information that I could find this morning was that we know it's some type of a lower body injury. We know it's it has to be right. We have almost like right, I know, I know, but you know how hard They won't Yeah, yeah, yeah, they will not by a body's part ever. But he he left the Sabers game in the second period and didn't return. Apparently Elias hadn't MRI on Friday, October thirty.

12:33 Speaker 1: First. I don't think there's been any subsequent update on the results of the MRI, but what we do know is he expect he is expected to be out for a few weeks, which is not awesome idea.

12:50 Speaker 3: But considering you know, he's he he has most certainly turned a page in his career in Boston, and so to see him only so many games in now he's got to be out and stopping some of that momentum.

13:11 Speaker 2: It's such a bummer for him because we could see it, We could see what we got him for why he was signed, you know. So it's really frustrating, but the promising thing at least for right now, although who knows, because things can always change, things can get backdated. Right now, he is just on IR, so that's a positive thing.

13:39 Speaker 1: I think they'll.

13:40 Speaker 2: Probably have him on IR for as long as it takes to either make a decision about what's going to happen next for him, if it's going to be actually a lengthy period of time, because I would assume that they would be very conservative in terms of let's go do any kind of surgical anything unless it's like you have to like a like a fracture, like a broken bone, where you time is of the essence that if you don't do surgery, you're gonna make things worse. So I wouldn't be surprised if there's some of that that's happening and they're just kind of waiting to see how that develops and how his body responds.

14:25 Speaker 2: So if things don't look like they're going in the right direction, then I would definitely expect them to put him on LTR to bring in.

14:35 Speaker 1: Then someone else if necessary.

14:38 Speaker 2: But they honestly, it seems like they have everything in hand with the with the young guys that they've brought in. I mean, I'm not saying that he's not missed, because he certainly is, but it's been okay.

14:52 Speaker 1: Well, he's going to be. I mean, for sure he's going to be missed, right you can you can patch things together for the short term. I think the biggest void is going to be with respect to Eland holmes injury, is the power play, because all of his goals thus far this season have come on the power play, and the power play has been, for lack of a more technical descriptor, you know, it hasn't been as impressive as one would hope. But I think five to five you might be okay. Where you're going to have to build the void is likely on those on the first power play unit, but you know, we'll we'll talk a little bit more in depth about that.

15:42 Speaker 1: What I want to start this episode with is the question of has Marco Sturm finally started to get his message across and pushing the right buttons. Now we'll we'll, we'll start the car conversation with the just god awful game against the Ottawa Senators where the Bruins lost seven to two. And I think we said all we needed to say about that game in our snapshots, but suffice it to say that they had nothing, absolutely nothing going on in that game, pretty much from from top to bottom. And as the game went along, I noticed that I did not like the body language coming from just about everybody in a Bruin's uniform, including including the coaching staff.

16:42 Speaker 1: Particularly to me, Pasta did not look engaged at all in that game, and that gave me a lot of pause for concern, like, what is what is happening here? These players shutting down already? Because that was one thing we had talked about in previous episodes, that this team didn't seem to have a willingness to give up, whereas in that game against Ottawa it seemed like they they gave up. Now, the Bruins started off decently in that game because Morgan Geeky put them up one to nothing, and then Skitzlert as his normal you know, let me, someone's gonna touch me and I'm going to take a dive, and the refs fall for it.

17:33 Speaker 1: They're on a power play and Autowa ties the game up one to one. The Bruins had a decent first period and then when the wheels fell off the bus, they look and fell off a cliff in that game.

17:50 Speaker 2: Yeah, it was as as bad as the Anaheim game was, because that prior to the Senator's game, that was the worst game that they had played all season.

18:05 Speaker 1: As bad as that game.

18:06 Speaker 2: Had been, at least what the Bruins that we saw on the ice for that circus performance was the we'll call them the new Bruins, the we're gonna keep going, We're gonna keep playing. We're not gonna fold like a deck of cards. We're just gonna keep playing our game. And that game against the Dock and we saw that when you maintain that positive attitude, that no quit attitude, you can start to get somewhere. And they ended up, you know, scoring two goals at the end there to really make it seem like there was a chance that they could recover that game.

18:46 Speaker 2: The game against the Senators was a copy and paste from last season. I don't know obviously what happened why in this particular instance, this game was so reminiscent of what we saw from them last year. You know, certainly, were there things that happened to them that were out of their control that put them behind the eight ball. Absolutely, that's something that is always a possibility in any game that they play, any team plays. But I just cannot explain what had happened. I mean, they lost complete control over themselves.

19:35 Speaker 2: They left sway and hanging. Granted it wasn't necessarily his best night, but perhaps it just got to the point where I don't recall necessarily him being you know, blatantly terrible or you know, like completely out of position and not doing his job necessarily. And also, quite frankly, the Senators had his number for years. This is a team for whatever reason he struggles against. Every goalie has that team, so that Senators are his, which stinks because they're in our divisions.

20:13 Speaker 1: Not very helpful.

20:15 Speaker 2: It was.

20:17 Speaker 1: It was horrible.

20:18 Speaker 2: It was the worst game I've ever seen ever ever, And and I'll take it a step further where and and this wasn't exclusively on this pairing, but in this Autawa game.

20:33 Speaker 1: It was glaring to me that Mason, Lauri and Charlie mcavoyd as a defensive pairing are a train wreck together. They are an absolute train wreck together. Yeah, and so it you know, it doesn't appear that there's any kind of cohesiveness with the way that each of them plays or communication when they are out on the ice together. Yeah. In addition to that, this was a stat that I heard Brian Johnston, who does the radio broadcast for the Bruins, that game against Ottawa was the first time in seven years that the Bruins gave up four power play goals in one game.

21:22 Speaker 1: Wow. Not pretty no, not pretty no. And I can't quite.

21:28 Speaker 2: Put my finger on what the problem is necessarily with that particular pairing of Laura and McAvoy. We've talked about individual issues with each of those players, how we would really love to see Charlie be this kind of.

21:49 Speaker 1: Player, or.

21:51 Speaker 2: Laura he's great at this, but he needs to be more this.

21:57 Speaker 1: But then together.

22:00 Speaker 2: It's it becomes compounded.

22:03 Speaker 1: I guess I'm not gonna know. It is because the stage player has a distinct nature to their game. Charlie apparently can't play the game that we all need him to play and want him to play and know that he can play when he's worried about Yeah, is he going to islurai going to pinch at the wrong time, or is he going to pinch at the same time that I'm pinching, or is he going to you know, cough up the pup when I'm getting ready to do something else. So it's just not a cohesive, cohesive unit in any way, shape or form.

22:40 Speaker 1: So let's move forward then to the game against the New York Islanders, because you know, we also had alluded to the fact that we thought it might be time for young Mason Lauri to have a seat and watch the game from a far right or somebody needed to have a seat and watch the game from afar, because Marco kept talking about on more than one occasion in just recent weeks about guys not flying in everybody.

23:13 Speaker 2: Needs to inn By the way, the fact that we've heard him say that a couple of times, a couple of times massive concern.

23:20 Speaker 1: Right. I agree with you. I agree with you because it begs the question of what is going on here? Are they not listening? Is it right? The system too difficult to grasp? Or are guys not wanting to grasp the system. So so be that as it may. We will now move on to the game against the New York Islanders that the Ruins ended up winning five to two. Yeah, the game started off as poorly. Yes, it was a continuation of the night the night before. It was horrible. But I was like, here we go again, Here we go again, here we go again.

24:00 Speaker 1: So I'll let you take the lead on this game, because.

24:04 Speaker 2: Yeah, it was night and day. From that first period into the second period, it was almost like it was a completely new game. It was who knows, somebody said something, somebody did something, and they were completely different. They scored three unanswered goals. We had our powerplay goal by Bill Mason Laurai in this game, and Ractice Slinch Home Campus Slinch Home was back in the line there.

24:34 Speaker 1: Yes, yes, And.

24:38 Speaker 2: I want to say it was almost as if, I don't know, like just the switch went off in their heads and they're like, oh, this is what we actually need to do. You know, we've talked about in last week's podcast episode. We just need to see Boston take advantage of one more opportunity. One more opportunity can make a huge difference, and this was one of those games where that was the case, where we had that extra opportunity that they took advantage of in that power play, and we saw again mike Yasamont getting out there and doing his thing, and those lower lines for a stretch of time, towards the end of the unpleasantness, we'll call it, they started to get quiet again.

25:33 Speaker 2: It almost seemed like we were back to one singular line going, you know, towards the end of that losing streak, and all of a sudden, we started seeing movement in action.

25:46 Speaker 1: We saw Acemont scoring.

25:49 Speaker 2: And then even going into the next couple of games, we've started to see more of that depth scoring again.

25:57 Speaker 1: We've had Arvidson's score goals.

25:59 Speaker 2: We've seen Castilik if he hasn't scored a goal, the man is about to score another goal.

26:05 Speaker 1: I've actually, he's, he's, he's, he's he popped a goal into the net. During this stretch of he's been Chasey Middlestat has been contributing. And I'm we're going a little off topic here, but I really like the chemistry that is developing between Casey middle Stat and Victor Ardwoodson. Yes, yes, we've just seen.

26:30 Speaker 2: What again, It just literally like a light switch has been has been flicked on. We now all of a sudden see all of the different parts moving in the way that they need to be moving, that they're doing their different kinds of jobs that are required of them, and ultimately I think that that is what has contributed over the last three games that the Bruins have played and have been able to win.

26:58 Speaker 1: So it tells me, more so than I.

27:03 Speaker 2: Felt earlier in this season thus far, that maybe the talent isn't really the issue that Okay, now they clearly have the ability to.

27:15 Speaker 1: Win games.

27:16 Speaker 2: They can win games decisively if they are doing their jobs. They clearly can. So now they are setting themselves up to this expectation that we are all going to have from here on out, especially after the Carolina game that we'll talk about shortly, but that was a massive expectation setter for well, there's been slow improvement during So we'll start with whatever happened in between the first and second period of the Islanders game where the Islanders scored on their first shot on goal and then shortly after that made it two to nothing.

28:01 Speaker 1: I don't know what happened in between periods of that game, if somebody said something. I hope that someone did, because I know what I would be saying if I was in that locker room. We're not doing this shit again tonight. Not at home. Not at home. And the Bruins came out a totally different team in that second period, to the point that when the Bruins scored three unanswered goals, Patrick Waw was forced to call a timeout, right, to call a timeout to get his team back in order again. And you know, the Bruins didn't take their foot off the gas for the most part.

28:42 Speaker 1: Even though they had a three to two lead going into the third period, they were able to extend that lead on another goal by Morgan Geeky. And I think they also killed off a four minute penalty in that game.

28:58 Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think again, if we take a step back and kind of look at these three games that they've won, and to your point of the slow progression of improvement and getting used to being in these new er lines, we've had a little bit of adjustment of lines that we've now seen for at least two games, right, Linholm has missed two games. This is allowing the team to also develop that chemistry getting used to each other, getting used to those particular line mats and pairings. And I think what we saw particularly in the Islanders game, because again it was two very different teams that we saw play.

29:47 Speaker 2: It wasn't just that the Islanders are what I've started to call like they're a little bit of the wild West hockey. It's it's a lot of young kids. They're they're not particularly great. That can be a lot of fun because they might have a lot of chances, they take.

30:03 Speaker 1: Advantage of chances.

30:05 Speaker 2: So because there have been definitely games that we've seen Boston play where they win and it's like, well, did they win because they were actually the better team or was the other did they win because the other team was just worse and they kind of got the win by default in that case.

30:25 Speaker 1: Here, I don't think.

30:26 Speaker 2: That the Islanders necessarily got worse. I think they stayed relatively stable and the same, and it was Boston that truly made the improvements that we saw and continued to see into the next two games.

30:46 Speaker 1: And one of the notable big changes for me, well couple of big changes, right, Myren Instadina as has been holding his own on that top line The other big change for me, and I'm praying that Marco Stern doesn't change this for the foreseeable future, is Zadora and Macavoy playing together. They are a couple. They have been in this stretch wrecking balls, and I absolutely love it. I absolutely love it. Yeah, it's it takes me right back to mighty ucks.

31:27 Speaker 2: We've got our bash brothers here because you've and I honestly, I feel like we've probably talked about this combination in theory before in the past, during a summer episode or whatnot, and this cannot be the first time that we've seen the two of them play together.

31:47 Speaker 1: But maybe it is. But but I you know, I think I think we've seen snippets. Yeah, we haven't seen as I don't think as large of a sample size as we have seen in four game stretch herege Yes.

32:03 Speaker 2: And Zadorov is really playing kind of a different game now too. He's really really just locked in and he's doing all the really good things that we saw from him periodically in the last season. He's been a much more consistent defenceman, a really solid, classic defensive defenceman. And when we had our summer episode where we talked about the different roles and the jobs of the different pairings, and what is an ideal pairing situation. I don't think that we really considered pairing Charlie McVoy with someone who was a defensive defenseman, because Juckie isn't.

32:52 Speaker 2: He's kind of a bit of a He's a little bit of a unicorn in the sense that he's not quite the pure two way defenseman like you would see hampasil at Holme, because he's not nearly as offensively minded as him or as offensively minded as LORI wants to be.

33:14 Speaker 1: He's also not super defensive defenceman like Carlo was or Zudorov is. So he's kind of like this, I don't know, in between something. And so I think for the longest time we all assumed that, well, for him, you have to pair him with an offensive defenseman. But apparently we.

33:38 Speaker 2: See him in his best role yet with a defensive defenseman. And quite frankly, it makes a lot of sense considering what we have seen from him over the last several seasons, where when he was in positions and partnered with people who required even let's say even a touch more supervision. And I'm talking about going all the way back to Matt Grizzlick is what I love to say about him, the same thing I'm saying about Mason Laurai, which.

34:11 Speaker 1: Is, when he's good, he's great. And he's bad, my god, is it horrible.

34:16 Speaker 2: And he had to periodically, you know, fix his mistakes and be aware of not just the play in front of him, but what his partner is doing. And I think for the first time in a really long time, probably since he was paired with Zadino Chara, he doesn't.

34:35 Speaker 1: Have to take that response. He can relax. It seems like he can relax, play, play a game, play his game, take a risk knowing that you know, Ze number two is going to be back there, you know, pretty much ready to knock someone block off. So you know, I think it's been beneficial to Charlie's game, and I do hope, I do hope that Marco maintains that pairing for the foreseeable future. I know, you know, at some point, at some point they're gonna need to figure out what to do with Mason Laurai. Now, Mason Laurai missed.

35:15 Speaker 1: He set out the game against the last two the last two games.

35:21 Speaker 2: He did play a game where he was paired with someone else though didn't he.

35:26 Speaker 1: Yes, I don't know if they had him with Peak at one point in time. I think so, I think they had in mind. I think they were just trying to Yeah, I mean, I'm good. I'm good with them giving him the opportunity right to sit and watch and learn and understand what the expectations of you are in this defensive minded structure that we're trying to get everyone to buy into EAR and to implement. Okay, so we'll we'll we'll see what happens. We'll see what happens with that. But you know, we have the game against the Sabers, which was now tell me if you was surprised by this game against the Sabers.

36:12 Speaker 1: The Bruins ended up winning four to three in overtime and it was a second start in a row fors Copersalo and I don't know. I found that a little bit surprising, but also in a good way, because I want to give Marco Sterm some credit for saying to himself, listen, I got what I needed to get out of these guys. In the game against the Islanders, there was a message sent, a message was received. You play hard, you buy in, you're going to earn your spot and likely keep it on this team. So to have Jonas make a second start in a row, Loria sits out the second game in a row, And I wonder if Marko thought that he might have inadvertently potentially started a little bit of a goalie controversy there, like, you know, what is the message that he's sending to me.

37:09 Speaker 1: The message was, listen, I'm going with the guys that I know are going to give me the best chance to win, which I think is a big part of a coach's job description.

37:22 Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, I thought it was great. I was surprised but not disappointed, just first from hearing it and then of course seeing it, and I think it did several things. One we heard from Corpusllo rightly, so he was disappointed that he wasn't given more opportunity in net, and he absolutely should have because last year he was better a lot of the time than Jeremy Swayman, and he should have been given the net several times based purely on performance, and he wasn't. So it was nice to see a coach recognizing that kind of to your point, if you're going to go either above and beyond or you're going to just make a huge difference.

38:17 Speaker 2: I'm going to recognize that and give you that chance. And that was good to see because that was a coach that keeps talking about not having guys buying in and being on board and blah blah blah, and then roll out the same lineup all the time.

38:33 Speaker 1: Right, put your money where your mouth. Just credits you in my view, Yeah, just credits you as a coach. Yeah, one hundred percent.

38:41 Speaker 2: And I think seeing him not repeat what I also thought was a pretty significant issue last year. And who knows, maybe the coaching staff last year didn't feel like they could do this, Like nobody got sat last year, with the exception of like that one time that pasta was set, nobody was. Freddy was never a healthy scratch. Corpusolo never got the net when.

39:11 Speaker 1: He earned it. It was it was, It was weird, and accountability was was very much lacking. Yeah year, And I don't know if again, the coaching staff felt like they were not in a position where they were allowed to who knows, But so I liked that he did it for that reason. I also liked it because it's been discussed out in the Ether, and admittedly so also by Swayman, that he thrives on competition. One of the reasons why he was so good when Linas Almark was there was because it was I think a genuine competition for the net in a respectful way, but a genuine competition that drove him to want to be better.

40:02 Speaker 2: And hopefully, if not necessarily there being a controversy, but building and developing a little bit more of competition between the two of them likely could serve as an excellent motivator for Jeremy Swayman. And I think that it paid dividends because by the time we saw him in net again against Carolina, he was perfection.

40:29 Speaker 1: So it did what it needed to do.

40:31 Speaker 2: And still to your larger point, it shows to it shows the team. I'm not, you know, bullshitting when I say, if you do what I need you to do and you work really hard, you are going to be rewarded simultaneously if you cannot get your shit together.

40:52 Speaker 1: And you continue to just like.

40:55 Speaker 2: Either ignore the plan or you're just not capable of executing on the plan. Because I'm thinking in this instance specifically of Mason Lowriight, I don't know, like is he just not getting it? Is he or is he just ignoring it? Then you're gonna get scratched because you are you are a liability and and we can't have that. So I was pleased on a number of fronts. I think it accomplished exactly what it needed to do. It made one goalie happy, rightly, so happy, fired up another goalie. We got what we needed out of him.

41:33 Speaker 2: It was it was perfect. It was exactly what we needed and he did a great job. You know, he's his corpusolo. Stats are somewhat misleading because yeah, they're not spectacular, but he's making key saves at points in the game that then have the potential to turn into opportunities that the Bruins then need to take advantage of. Whether or not they are that's a separate issue, but he is giving them a key moment save for this team to go and run with it.

42:05 Speaker 1: And that's I think competition is good, even in the house, right, it's never a bad thing to know there's someone that you have to look over your shoulder say, yes, this guy's help from my job, right, I want to keep my job.

42:21 Speaker 2: Yes, yes, absolutely absolutely, So I thought that was a great game in spite of you know, the penalties and everything.

42:33 Speaker 1: I mean, you know, we were creeping back up. That's gotta, that's gotta kind of yeah, that's still a bone of contention with me. However, you know, they pull out a win in overtime. Morgan Geeky extended his full streak to six games, to which Pasta said, you know, paraphrasing that he thinks Morgan can get fifty goals this year, which is coming from pass Bomber fact right, the.

43:04 Speaker 2: Fact that a Boston Bruin let alone Morgan Geeky, that it's not David Pasternak. The fact that a Boston Bruin is in the running right now. Granted it's the beginning of November. For you know, most goals is insane.

43:19 Speaker 1: It's insane. Have a three one lead in that game against Buffalo. They fought their way back in to tie the game. So here we go to overtime, and I thought, well, isn't this kind of weird in a scary way that Marco's got married in Stadina out on the ice. But the overtime with am Cryst lynch Holm thankfully and escapes me who the other guy was? Was it Fraser, Fraser Minton along with it, and you know, Fraser basically picks off a pass and those two boys are off to the and you could tell that Merret was thinking shot the entire way.

44:07 Speaker 1: And I'm so glad that he had that shoot mentality because it was a beautiful shot yep. And he beat Alex Lyon and he scored his first as a Bruin. Yeah, and his first was an OT winner. Yeah, and good for him, yeah, good for those guys and good you know again, I'm giving Marco some credit for having that that faith and confidence in those young guys.

44:40 Speaker 2: Yeah, and it worked out tremendously because you know, if they hadn't been able to pull it off, that would have really sucked, right, So obviously that this accomplishes so much because not only is he putting them that trust in them and they actually execute on what they needed to do. You've got young players new to the team, ish players talk about being able to get additional buy in. You know, he's still doing that kind of thing as a new coach. It's it's just a month in, he he It's not always a percent guarantee.

45:15 Speaker 2: Even if players say, like you know, upfront, yes of course I'm going to buy in, but deep down do they trust him?

45:23 Speaker 1: You know, that's not something you can just decide. You have to earn trust.

45:28 Speaker 2: And that just helped propel that relationship that he has with his players. That that just did so much more than win them a game. Really, and those and those guys earned that opportunity.

45:42 Speaker 1: They they have been working hard, playing hard, doing their job and doing their jobs right. So so credit to those guys. And then we have a game against the Carolina Hurricanes on Saturday afternoon, a matinee game against a very very good hockey team. Granted, no, they kind of lose their luster in the playoffs, it seems year after year. But they're always a boring there, I know. But they're a good, solid, strong hockey team. And typically the Bruins matinee games. We've had this conversation before about the fact that for some reason, staying have sleepy starts to matinee games.

46:31 Speaker 1: Yep, I was worried about that, knowing the opponent that was coming into the building, But that was not the case at all for the Bruins. They started off very aggressively. They they were physical, they maintained a great piece of play with the Carolina Hurricanes. Dare I say that was likely their most complete game of this early season, and that third period of hockey was some of the most entertaining, back and forth hockey I have seen this season.

47:09 Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree, and I had specifically brought this up in our snapshot preview of this game that to this point in the season, Carolina, you know they are an offensive powerhouse.

47:25 Speaker 1: They have averaged therefore, check is suffocating and relentless.

47:30 Speaker 2: They've averaged thirty three shots on goal over the course of I think it's like eleven games or something to that point.

47:37 Speaker 1: And you want to hear a fun facts, a little bit of a shocking fact. Apparently the Hurricanes have the worst power play percentage in the NHL right now. That's a surprise.

47:50 Speaker 2: That is a surprise they checking now because I did did the math on this, because this is how I figured out, obviously, how many the average shots on goal at this point, They've only out of eleven games, they've only gotten fewer than thirty shots on goal three times. Prior to this game, they were twenty seven, twenty eight, and twenty four shots on goal. The Bruins held them to under thirty shots on goal, They had twenty nine shots on goal.

48:21 Speaker 1: Well, and so again this speaks to that defensive structure, right, this is what we've been I think we saw in this game against Carolina what that structure is supposed to look like when you play from start to finish in that matter. Yeah, well, and I bring this.

48:41 Speaker 2: Up also to say because again people might might be thinking, well, you know, the Bruins were playing against a defensively decimated Carolina Hurricanes team.

48:56 Speaker 1: So you know, of course, what do you expect. They had it easier than a team maybe a couple of weeks ago would have had because you know, they were out without.

49:05 Speaker 2: Slaven gostas Bear and KeAndre Miller, so they were missing some big players there. Shockingly, Seth Jarvis played. I certainly didn't think he was going to because he took a shot to the foot like the day or two before. Yes, but the fact that when we're looking at just the shots on goal, the fact that the Bruins held them to twenty nine shots on goal tells me that it was truly the Bruins being the reason they won, and not the reason they won was because Carolina was easier to play against, because they still only got twenty two shots on goal against Carolina.

49:55 Speaker 1: So clearly they were.

49:58 Speaker 2: Still doing their job offensively. Their goaltender was still doing his job defensively. So I think genuinely it wasn't just a full sixty minute effort. They were good, like objectively good.

50:14 Speaker 1: An editor, and I you know, Carolina is not a team that plays a physical style of hockey. So for the Bruins to come out right from the get go and establish a physical level of play, you know, you started with you know, Jeno trying to go after you know, Taylor Hall right and you get a little scrum going that way over over by the bench, and Casta was physical. Knackaboyans Dora in this game, in particular against Carolina were absolute hitting machines. I just it was, you know, and pause a Dora he gets, you know, he The Bruins were very disciplined in the game.

51:00 Speaker 1: They only took one penalty in this game against Carolina, and the penalty itself that was called against Nikita Zadorov was total bullshit in my view, because he gets called for being making a good, strong play on the puck simply because he's bigger than the other guy, which is ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. But be that as it may. Only one penalty in that game. Now, Carolina's for check in the second period did create problems for the Bruins because the Owens didn't get a ton of offensive zone pressure in that second period and they were scrambling a bit in their own end at times.

51:42 Speaker 1: But they weathered the storm. But that third period. There was no scoring in that game until the third period. Yeah, and that third period of hockey was pretty damn book. It was.

51:57 Speaker 2: It was fantastic, It was it was exciting. It was really really nice to see. And hopefully that kind of continues to grow and develop and that we see that again and in the next game against the Islanders is a pretty quick rematch because we are now at game This will be game four of kind of this new new.

52:22 Speaker 1: Lineup, new mix of players.

52:25 Speaker 2: It can only continue to get better with time. Middlestat had a couple of points in that game too. He had chances and the goals. He had an assistant.

52:36 Speaker 1: Like I said, I well, I loved the chemistry that I saw between Victor Ardbertson and Casey Middlestat in this game. It seems to be growing ever so strongly. And you know, I think Victor Arbertson is starting to come into his own little bit too. You know, we know he's not afraid to shoot, but you know when those shots start start going in, it's nothing but a positive yeah for the Bruins. Yeah, Mason Laurai that out another game. So to me, it begs the question, what are they gonna do with them? Is he the weakest?

53:16 Speaker 1: Is he the weak wink? Because Jonathan Asparo, Jonathan Asparo has been he's been good, He's fine. Bye.

53:26 Speaker 2: Yeah, causing damage, that's the bare minimum at this point. The other one though, that we need to keep an eye on is Henry Yoki.

53:35 Speaker 1: How are you Yoki? Turnovers are becoming a little bit of an issue for this player. So that's just something to keep an eye out on moving forward. Now, I get you know, at some point, you know you you signed Moorai, You gave him more money than I was willing to give him or would have given him. Yeah, think he's going to need to see I would think you need to see the ice again. But where where do you put him back in where it's a safe where that's a safe place for him to third pairing third pairing. He cannot be he cannot be a top piering guy.

54:18 Speaker 1: Bruins are in such a fragile place right now. They've effectively restarted their season.

54:24 Speaker 2: Tip tomorrow is like Game one all over again because we're at you know, five hundred basically, and they are. We've only got so many more games until we are at the twenty two game threshold, which is usually Thanksgiving, although because of the compress schedule, it's about a week before where we will know if the Bruins even have a chance.

54:52 Speaker 1: So if they're a bubble.

54:53 Speaker 2: Team at game twenty two, it's going to be they're going to be fighting tooth and nail for every single point for a chance to possibly get a wild card spot. If they are more than four or six points out by game twenty two, it's really not likely to happen. We're going to spend another season done after April seventeenth or whatever.

55:25 Speaker 1: So you've seeing it right, Yeah, as it stands right now, you know, the Bruins have won three games in a row, more out of five. They haven't lost a game since hampuslint Home came back in in the lineup and Mason it's been out of the lineup. The next stretch of games that the Bruins have are huge, huge, because you're playing in New York is these are all in conference games. Is you have the Islanders again on Tuesday the fourth, you have Ottawa at home on the sixth, and then you see the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday eighth for the first first time this season.

56:06 Speaker 1: So these are all significant points for you to try and put in the bank as you deal with this crazy, crazy month of October. In November, we usually do our game previews, right, we try to do our a little bit of a game preview here, and I'm just puzzled about who's going to be in net for these games, because I'm assuming that Swayman will take the net against the Maple Leafs on Saturday. Yeah, So then how do you balance the games against the Islanders. Do you put Corporate SLLO back in net to the game against the Islanders or to your earlier point where you say that Swayman seems to struggle mightily against the Senators, does Corporate Does Corpos Salo get the nets for that game and Swayman gets the Islander game?

57:06 Speaker 2: I think so, I think, I think Swayman definitely earned the Islander game. There's no reason that he should not play that game. And it also accomplishes again two things that Thursday, when they play the Senators, put corpion net.

57:27 Speaker 1: Don't like it went so poorly.

57:29 Speaker 2: Don't do that, and it's a rest and it then sets Swayman up for the game against the Leafs, and then their next game after that is against the Leafs again. So it's it's it's a very very busy, very busy divisional.

57:48 Speaker 1: Stretch that we got coming up here. So that's what's house around a premium. You're now sitting at five hundred. It's almost like you have somewhat of a start clean slate. Okay, really five hundred, keep that momentum going yet points right, I'm not saying that you need to win all of these games, it would be great, but at least focus on taking points away from these games. Yes, now we get to our segment where we do our stick taps, slick taps and penalty bops. So I'll start with your stick taps.

58:28 Speaker 2: Yeah.

58:29 Speaker 1: Obviously, the fact.

58:31 Speaker 2: That the team has worked really well together as a whole to get themselves back at even that's it's not that they're at even it's the fact that it's clearly been a true whole team effort, and you really need to see that, especially during a season that is clearly a season of transition.

58:58 Speaker 1: New coat.

59:00 Speaker 2: He's sticking to his guns, he's following through. You know, he gets that other stick tap in that he's he's holding players accountable, he's rewarding players who do extra. He's keeping Zadorav and Macavoy together while it's.

59:18 Speaker 1: Making me happy with that. I love that.

59:21 Speaker 2: Yeah, And you gotta love Mara Husnadinov and his moment right now. You know, we don't know how long he's going to be up on that line, but as long as he continues to do what he needs to do, he's going to be earning promotions when they become available. And you know, I will also throw in stick tabs for Marcastlic because he also earned himself a promotion up to the third line after last couple of last couple of games. I mean, he's been hunting for a goal at least each of those last three games.

1:00:02 Speaker 1: He's just really elevated himself in that regard to and I think he's missed on that fourth line to be perfectly honest with you, because you know I'm going to jump to my penalty box. But Johnny Beecher totally unnoticeable. Yeah, totally unnoticeable. And I didn't even know he was playing at all in that game against Carolina. So I don't know. I'm just I don't know what's going on with this player. But I just it's he's definitely underwhelming. Yeah, the question for him is going to be.

1:00:36 Speaker 2: Will he either because he's not been playing right and so as a pro athlete, he can't.

1:00:43 Speaker 1: He doesn't want to not be playing.

1:00:45 Speaker 2: However, if he says, well I want to I want to play and out, then send me to the AHL. He's he's got to go through waivers and is it possible that he gets picked up. It could very well be, And so if that's a reality, Boston doesn't want to give him away for free. So at some point you have to wonder, if Boston doesn't want to give him away for free, he's gotta then be asking for a trade. And so when do we see him depart the organization?

1:01:20 Speaker 1: I think it. It just seems it's only somewhat of a matter of time. It's just not happening for him for whatever reason, and and it's the lack of opportunities because he has been given, in my view, ample and fair opportunity.

1:01:38 Speaker 2: Yes, yes, they gave him a spot on the roster on the NHL roster after the training camp. So, but it's hard to really make a difference if you're not playing, and it can't be great for his development. So if I were him, I'd be saying to my agent, I need to be playing, right.

1:02:01 Speaker 1: We've got to figure that out. We'll see what happens with that. How about your penalty box? The penalties like, it's been a little bit up and down. They've had games where it's been better, they've had games where it's been worse.

1:02:14 Speaker 2: So I think they just have to keep they just have to keep working on that. Their their penalty kill has been excellent. But you you've got to keep your best players out of five five. You can't have that be over use those players. That's just it's dangerous when you've got such a condensed schedule, correct.

1:02:35 Speaker 1: I agree with you. Yeah, And the injuries, I'm not beneficial. It's particularly eliaslint Home injury. But you know I've got marat in stick taps because he's he's earned his opportunity. And I think that's, you know, again, good messaging by the coaching staff. And I've put Marco storm in my stick taps just overall his messaging. You know, I was getting a little tired a week or so ago hearing Marco's messaging about the buy in and you know, not everyone's on board, and even the you know, some of the so called you know, the leaders regurgitating that.

1:03:19 Speaker 1: And you know again, so early in the season, we're like, really, we're hearing the self ay, and we've already won hire some of it. So to their credit, they have put their money where their mouth is during this stretch of time, and number is that they can maintain the steady level of play that we have been seeing. It's been a slow build, and I think the game against Carolina should solidify for them. If we stay in our structure and if we play the right way, we will be in all these games. You're not necessarily going to win them all.

1:04:00 Speaker 1: No one expects you to win them all. Just be in the game right and see what happens.

1:04:08 Speaker 2: I will say, if it's a winnable game, they better win that game.

1:04:13 Speaker 1: I No, no, that isn't off the look. No, no, no, I'm not letting them off the hook. Yeah, but right again, after listening to Charlie McAboy talk and others talk about, you know what sounds like a dramatic change from the way in which they've been playing for years, Yeah, and not having enough and I don't know if this is you know, management blowing smoke up our ass saying well, we really haven't had enough time to practice and work on these things and it's a new system and blah blah blah. Okay, fine, right, that's fine, but you can ill afford.

1:04:53 Speaker 1: You can ill afford to have big hiccups when you have such a difficult schedule, and banking points is going to really matter when you come back from that Olympic break, especially if you're still somewhat in the mix of things. Right, So the other penalty box for me, other than echoing what you said about the penalties is Henry Yokihyu. I just think, right, you can ill afford, when you're finally getting some momentum to have a player who is turning the puck over and the potential that that turnover will happen at at an ill opportune moment in time, and I think that's what why Mason Laurai is in a bit of a timeout right now.

1:05:53 Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I agree. I agree, But I think that's all she wrote. I think that's all she wrote this episode. Folks, we thank you for listening. We thank you for your support. Please like and sububscribe to our content so that more people can find us. You can find us pretty much on any social media platform.

1:06:17 Speaker 1: We are on x we are on substaff. You can find past shows on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, just search for Ruins tape to tape And with that said, do you have any closing thoughts? Go Be's Go Be's