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00:00And speaking of double-hot, we've got Scott McLaughlin joining us now here on the WEEI
00:05afternoon program. Hot off that column that I was reading, Scott, you said Jim Montgomery
00:11threw a Hail Mary and it didn't exactly work like it did for Jaden Daniels and the Commanders. So
00:18I guess we have to just start. How much longer do you think Jim Montgomery will be the coach
00:21of the Bruins? It honestly feels like it's like game to game at this point. I mean this is the
00:29situation that Don Sweeney has set up where you didn't sign him to an extension before the season,
00:35you know, said pre-season, hey we've talked to him about an extension, okay that's not actually
00:42getting it done. Now you go into the season with him not being signed beyond this year
00:49and you get off to a bad start. And like in any sport and especially in the NHL,
00:55in that situation where you have a lame duck coach and a team not playing up to its capabilities or
01:01at least what you think its capabilities are, the questions begin about is there going to be a
01:06change. And it's, we've heard it locally, national guys like Darren Dreger have said, you know,
01:12management and ownership are having tough conversations. Like that situation invites
01:19this when you don't start well. We have not heard from Don Sweeney since the season started,
01:24so there's been no public vote of confidence. You know, I don't have any sources telling me
01:30like this is happening, you know, this weekend or whatever, but let's just look at it. Like you
01:36have the Flyers again on Saturday. Seems as of now that, you know, Montgomery's still the coach
01:41for that game. That's a team that just shut them out on Tuesday. The Flyers have, prior to that
01:48game were giving up the most goals in the NHL. So say things go poorly against Saturday. All right,
01:55where do you stand now? Like questions certainly aren't going to stop. You know, an okay Seattle
02:01team comes into the garden Sunday. It feels like, you know, a bad weekend. You have to do something.
02:07And if you're the general manager, there's basically two things. One is a trade, trade away
02:13a core player, shake things up that way, and get guys attention. That feels early. And the other is
02:19fire the coach. Like those, you know, throughout history, those are the two options that GMs have
02:25in this situation. I'm kind of with Millbury though. I mean, Jim Montgomery didn't go out
02:30there and give up six goals on the first 16 shots out of the first, what, 22 shots he faced? You
02:35know, in Swayman, we were, you know, Andy and I are mostly football guys, but I think even
02:40at some point on the six rings pod, we were sort of comparing the Swayman thing to how a lot of
02:45times in holdouts in the NFL, like, Oh, here comes an injury. Or, you know, they're, they're not in
02:50football shape by the time they get out there. It feels like he's in an extended preseason right now.
02:55And he's certainly playing that way. It hasn't looked himself. Hasn't had a signature game
02:59just yet. I don't think it's a bad investment, but to blame the coach, this feels like scapegoat city
03:05to just go from greatest regular season in NHL history to 18 months later, like this guy's no
03:11good. They've tuned him out and the players aren't playing for him anymore. I don't buy it.
03:16Yeah. And I don't even know if they've necessarily tuned him out in the sense that like, I don't
03:21think they're ignoring what he, the points he's trying to coach. It seems like for whatever
03:27reason, they just can't do it. It's like, like everyone knows how they want to play
03:31and they're not playing that way. They want to play fast North, South for check physical,
03:38get to the front of the net. They're not playing fast. They're not for checking because they're
03:43not getting there on time. They're not getting to the front of the net. They are, I think 30th
03:47in the NHL and high danger chances. Like they're not generating good chances. So, you know, it's
03:55like Montgomery can tell them what to do, but it's clearly, and I think guys want to play that
04:02way. Like you talk to them in the locker room and you know, that they're not giving off a vibe of
04:08like panicking. Like it's like, they know what they need to do, but for whatever reason, game
04:13after game, they cannot do it. And now this week it has clearly gotten worse, like getting shut
04:19up by the Flyers and then losing a two to Carolina. Those are like straight up. And those
04:25aren't just like losses in tough games. Those are like straight up embarrassing.
04:30As an old school hockey guy, I know a famous player once said you miss a hundred percent
04:34of the shots. You don't take a, this team doesn't get any shots. Forget about goals.
04:38They don't get any shots. Why are they not getting shot? Like what's the problem there
04:41in terms of not being able to like create offensive opportunities? Is it just what
04:46you're saying that they aren't fast enough? Cause that's the other question when you were
04:49answering that kind of tying that in. Is it that they want to be fast and aren't playing fast or
04:56are they not fast enough? Are they a slow team? Yeah. 15 shots on that is pathetic.
05:00Yeah. And that Andy, that's kind of like the $64,000 question here is, you know, like
05:07Mike Millbury brought this up during his appearance on the great kill show too. It's
05:10like, are they actually just a slow team or are they out of shape and playing slow or,
05:16or like what's going wrong there? And both are fair because they, Cam Neely said after last
05:22season, we need to get faster. And then they didn't really make moves that made them faster.
05:27Like the guys they brought in, I think are better skaters than people are giving them
05:33credit for. Like even Nikita Zdorov, like I hear people saying like, Oh, he's just like a big lug.
05:36Like Nikita Zdorov is actually a pretty good skater for a guy, his size for a defenseman.
05:41Um, you know, Max Jones is a good skater. He just, he keeps taking penalties. So like,
05:46he's not staying in the lineup. Like Mark Kastelik on the fourth line is a good skating.
05:50You've seen that he's been one of the few guys who has actually lived up to expectations, uh,
05:55or in his case exceeded them a lot. But yeah, as a team, there's no question they are playing slow.
06:02They are losing a lot of foot races. As I said, they're not arriving on time in the four check.
06:07So even if you want to go in there and hit a guy, if he's already moved the puck by the time
06:11you get there, then it doesn't matter what you want to do. Like you're either taking a penalty
06:15or you're turning back up ice and playing defense now. So yeah, something is just so off because
06:24they have so many guys who are just dramatically underperforming where it's like, even if maybe
06:31they missed on, on, on the off season in the sense that the moves they made, weren't going
06:36to put them over the top to be a Stanley cup team. This roster is still plenty good enough
06:43to be a playoff team. It is not lose five out of six bad. It is not lose eight, two to Carolina
06:50bad. Like, so, so like there's a clear disconnect and just disjointedness in this team where it's,
06:58it, people have made the observation that like, it looks like they haven't played together before.
07:02And that is how it looks like the chemistry is not there. The way they want to play isn't there.
07:08And that's where you look at Montgomery and it's like, well, is that a coaching thing or
07:14is something going on with the players where, I don't know, they weren't ready to go this season
07:18or they're not ready to go now. Like why does it look as bad as it does? Scott McLaughlin from the
07:25skate pod and we.com joining us here on the WEI afternoons in studio. How long do you think then
07:31Scott could ownership? Do you think like Neely and Millbury would let that if they think like,
07:36okay, this is, that's clearly what Millbury said this morning on, on the Greg Hill show. So if they
07:41believe this is a players related issue and they don't want to take it out on Monty yet, how much
07:45more slack could you see them cutting him? Like quarter of the season, all-star break four games,
07:51or is it just game? Could it be game to game? Like if they lose four nothing tomorrow and
07:55they're just absolutely non-competitive once again, could we see something by the week?
08:02Yeah. I mean, it, at some point it gets, it snowballs enough where you have to do something
08:08and whether you think it's Montgomery's fault or not. And I, I certainly don't put this all on him
08:14at all. At some point you have to do something. And like I said, the two options are change the
08:20coach or change the roster in a meaningful way. Not like send down, you know, fringe forward X and
08:27call someone up or sign Tyler Johnson, which is still something I think they should do. He's
08:32a veteran who's still around skating with them at practice that they haven't signed for some reason.
08:39But like something bigger than that, that gets guys attention because it feels like they,
08:44they need like a true wake-up call to kind of get everyone's attention and get them
08:51focused, sparked, whatever. And Montgomery's tried probably just about everything he can
08:56think of, whether it's changing the lines, yelling at them in practice, which he did on Wednesday,
09:02yelling at Marshand on the bench, like he's trying stuff and none of it is clicking. So
09:09at some point if you're the general manager, yeah, you need to act. And I would say sooner
09:14rather than later, like, I don't know if you wait till Thanksgiving or Christmas it's Matt
09:19Porter had something in the Boston Globe today about teams that are out of the playoffs on
09:24November. People always talk about Thanksgiving teams that are out of the playoff pitcher on
09:28November 1st over, I forget how many years he went back, but it was like 27% made the playoffs.
09:34Like you're already playing ketchup. You're out of the playoffs right now. So, you know,
09:39I know like standings wise, it's like, ah, everyone's kind of jumbled together,
09:42but you fall behind further. It is hard to make up ground in the NHL. It's a three point system.
09:48Every overtime loss, you get a point teams that get off to hot starts by and large stay there
09:53and are hard to catch. So Rich is Rich Keith's report on the midday show was that barring a
10:00turnaround or something of that phrase, what's a turnaround? Like, is it, do they just need one
10:06win right now? And is that the first step? Do they need to get back in the playoff picture?
10:09Do you have an idea what would be perceived as quote unquote, writing the ship at this point?
10:15I think it needs to be four or five, six good games in a row. So like two weeks of good,
10:21solid play, and there might be losses in there, but they have to be losses where you played well.
10:26And this team has not been able to string together games. Like they went out to Colorado,
10:32had a good win beat. Okay. Yeah. An avalanche team that was reeling a little bit. They were
10:37up to a slow start of their own, but nonetheless, everyone knows that's a good team. That was a nice
10:42win. Then they lost the next three, including getting shut out by a Nashville team that had
10:48not won to that point and getting blown off the ice by Dallas at home. Then they bounced back.
10:55They beat Toronto in overtime, right? Like pretty good win. Even though we all like to mock Toronto,
11:01that's a pretty good team. All right. There's something to build off. You get the emotional
11:04high of March and scoring in overtime. You respond this week with the losses to Philly
11:10and Carolina. Like one game is definitely not enough. They've shown they can win one game
11:16every week and a half. Like it needs to be, it needs to be two weeks straight of good play four,
11:21five, six games. So your goaltender on the season, Jeremy Swayman signed in the off season
11:26for eight years, $66 million played in eight games. He's three, four, and one.
11:31Not great. The 3.6 goals against average is stupefying. I mean, I, I, I didn't expect that
11:39we were going to see Patrick. Wow. You know, 2.0 this season or for the next half, half decade or
11:45more, but he's like, he's like, he's like skating him. Now, of course, a lot of this also can go
11:50back to defense. I understand. It's not always just a goaltender's fault, but he's not, he's,
11:56he's not himself yet by any stretch. Couldn't, could there be too much? Could there be too
12:00much pressure on him now? Uh, I don't think so. I mean, I think he likes pressure. Like,
12:06I think he's the kind of guy who thrives under that. Uh, but yeah, no question. He hasn't been
12:11good enough. I don't think he's, I don't think he's been the number one reason they've lost any
12:16of these games. I don't even think he's given up really that many truly soft goals. Uh, but he's
12:23not in the NHL. It's not good enough to just make the saves you're supposed to make. That makes you
12:31a below average goalie in the NHL. You need to take goals off the board, especially if you were
12:36going to be paid like one of the very best goalies in the world. You need to bail your team out when
12:42they need bailing out. And that is what Swineman has not done yet this season. He has not bailed
12:47them out. He has not, you know, made the, the, just taking a goal off the board at a moment in
12:53the game where they just need him to be there. Uh, if you look at like goal saved above expected,
13:02which just tells you, okay, here's what would be expected to, for you to give up based on number
13:08of shots you face quality, all that 58 goalies in the NHL have played at least three games so far.
13:14He is 44th and goal saved above expected, like not good enough past season consistently top 10 top
13:22five. So yeah, like he definitely has, he has a lot of work to do. He looks like a goalie who
13:27missed all the training camp in the preseason. And I know he worked out over at BU great place.
13:34Uh, as I sit here, my BU shirt getting ready to head over there tonight. Um,
13:40but like, that's not, that's not an NHL preseason. So yeah, it looks like he's still ramping up.
13:45And unfortunately the Bruins have needed to lean on him and needed him to steal some games and he
13:50has not been able to. So I know I haven't been in this full-time radio show thing long, but I do
13:56know that one of the classic questions you have to ask a caller when they say, I want to fire the
14:00coach or manager is, well, who are you going to replace him with? So let's play a radio. Let's
14:04just say Jim Montgomery loses his job. Who are some of the candidates to replace him as the
14:09Bruins coach? Well, they have two guys on staff that they interviewed last time. This job was
14:15open, uh, when they fired Bruce Cassidy and that's Joe Sacco, who has been, been around a long time
14:20on Montgomery staff and Cassidy staff before that. And Jay Leach, who was formerly Providence
14:28Bruins head coach, they liked him. He left to become assistant coach in Seattle with the Kraken
14:35and now he's back as an assistant coach here this year. So you start there. Those are very obvious
14:42in-house choices. You know, even if you just give them the interim label, plug them right in,
14:48um, you know, outside of that, I don't know if they would want to expand to like a wider search
14:55in season. That's obviously tough. There's not a lot of coaches hanging around right now available.
15:03That would be absolutely perfect. You know, let's add something else to his daily docket as well.
15:07I mean, good coach can coach, right? Didn't he say a good coach is a good coach. That's
15:11how he sold Matt Patricia to us. He's a good coach. He'll be the Matt Patricia of the Boston
15:15Bruins as well. He's on a beach somewhere. He's showing up, showing off with his girlfriend right
15:22now. Meanwhile, Linda holiday is worse than what an amazing week of costumes. Anyway, see,
15:26this is already more pleasant than talking about the lowly star for the Bruins. So they have,
15:31so two guys, Leach and Sacco, are they hard-os are they like hard-o coaches? Cause that's the theory
15:37we've been kind of banding about the, the parcels to Carol to Belichick, the pendulum swings in
15:43different directions. There's one guy too nice. Do you make up for it? Bring it or either of those
15:46two guys hard-os. Yeah. And it's not a young team, right? By any stretch. Uh, they, they definitely
15:51got younger. They're like the, they're like the sixth youngest team in the NHL this season. Yeah.
15:56Which, Hey, maybe that's part of the problem. Like in past seasons, they've had a lot of veteran
16:02leaders around, right? And this season it's Marchant. Then your alternate captains and
16:07possible knock in McAvoy. And I think there's only two other guys who are 30. Maybe I think
16:12it's Charlie Coyle and Hampus Lindholm. Like isn't he 30? Uh, I think he's turning 30. He's like
16:18right around there. Yeah. Um, but yeah, like it's there, so there's not that, you know,
16:25group of like eight to 10 guys who have been around the league for 10 years. Uh, like there
16:30has been in past seasons. Um, as far as whether or not, as far as whether they're hard-os, I,
16:36I don't know if I described them that way. Joe Sacco did kind of Heather have that reputation.
16:41Uh, his only other NHL head coaching gig, which was in Colorado, uh, like 12 years ago,
16:4812, 13 years ago. And that didn't really work. That was a young team that had kind of like,
16:55just drafted land of scog and some other, um, key guys for their rebuild.
17:00And he didn't really mesh with them and it didn't last long. It wasn't very successful,
17:04but from people I've heard from, like, he's changed a lot over the years and kind of
17:10learned better how to deal with young players. Um, so I don't know if that means he's softened
17:16up or could he still turn on, you know, that hard at like that hard switch if he needed to,
17:23if that was what the Bruins were, we're looking for. It's been so long since he's done it as a
17:28head coach that, you know, it'd be, it would be interesting to see what his style would be.
17:33All right, Scott, before we let you go, uh, just put some odds on it. Let's just say
17:3710 days from now, Jim Montgomery will or will not be the Bruins head coach.
17:42I'm going to, so I don't know what, I don't know what the odds would be, but like I would,
17:48if I could get decent odds on it, I unfortunately would probably bet. No, because I don't know.
17:54I don't know that this team can just turn it around that quickly. Like that, their,
17:59their problems just seem so deep right now. Like they are playing, they're playing objectively
18:04bad hockey. And that is tough to turn around in just one game or one weekend.
18:11And again, because he's not signed after the season, like Montgomery is the easy fall guy.
18:18And it's the easy change for Sweeney to make, to try to spark this team.
18:22Yeah. I, I, on the way out, I know, I know we're up against it, but I just want to ask,
18:25why do you think that they, the guy takes him to the greatest record of all time. They make
18:29it back to the post-season last year, by and large seems like he's their guy. And yet he
18:35doesn't get the deal before the season starts. Why do you, why do you, what is it that you think
18:39of just real quick? What, what is it about him that maybe that they made them say, okay, prove
18:44it again. I think that they're not totally sold on the playoff performances. Obviously
18:49the greatest regular season team ever falls in the first round to Florida. And then last year,
18:55they almost blow a three, one lead again. In the first round, they survived Toronto
19:00in overtime in game seven. And then you take Florida to six, but some of those games weren't
19:06very competitive. Some of them looked a lot like how this season has looked where they
19:10really struggled to generate shots. They'd go entire periods with two or three shots on goal.
19:16And so I think they probably aren't entirely sold that Montgomery can get them to play a way that
19:23wins in the playoffs would, would be my guess. If I, if I had to,
19:27he's Scott McLaughlin, we.com, the skate podcast, and I think unofficially becoming the WEI
19:33afternoon show Bruins insider. When he makes his little visits to the studio and lets us know how
19:39hot the seat is for Jim Montgomery. We'll see if the Jim Montgomery led Bruins can turn it around.
19:44We were going to switch gears here. We're going to have a little fun. We just touched on it. I
19:48think we're going to get into bill Belichick's social media presence over the course of Halloween,
19:54which as everyone knows, got more and more cringe inducing by the post. Scott,
19:59thanks for stopping by and we'll be right back after this.