Bruins 2022-23 Season Thread

Any sport. At least the Patriots got to the end when they blew it. First round? That's a joke of the ages.

and finally, two years in a row, Ullmark can't do it in the playoffs. Fairweather regular season goalie. His responses after that abortion of a mistake that gave game 5 away made me done with him for good. He was so unwilling to take responsibility. "That's just what happens..." I'm afraid we're going to lose Swayman as an RFA this year because of Sweeney sucking at contracts. Decent at trading, horrid at contracts.

Montgomery interview after the game - Bruins lost the first, second periods and OT - Florida the better team - and the Bennett line was a beast.

He sounds absolutely shell shocked - clearly disappointed with how his team played.

Still steamed. How can a team with their regular season record lose three home games in the playoffs? That's pretty hard to do, no?

Going to be hard to get fired up about this team next year - for many reasons.

For me it's disappointment, not anger. Couple random thoughts:

- Montgomery was right, they got outplayed in the 1st and OT. I thought the 2nd was closer to a toss-up, but who cares. To come out flat was sad to see, but they showed us why they were so good up until the 59th minute of the game.

- The were uncharacteristically sloppy for a long part of the game, again. Some of those passes in the middle of the ice were awful, it felt like that was in their peak-pressing period and then once Krejci scored they relaxed.

- In hindsight, I guess Florida was a tough matchup. I think people fell into the false narrative of 135 points vs 92 points, this is the playoffs and all that mattered was this was a division team that beat them 2 of 4 times in the regular season. They had confidence they could beat us, and played us better than Toronto and Tampa did this year.

- With that said, up 3-1 it is inexcusable to lose that series. Inexcusable for that defense to give up 4+ goals in three straight games. Inexcusable for the penalty kill to disappear.

- They were fantastic, but their greatness in 2023 was surrounded by cold snaps. They lost 4-of-5 in late January, they lost 3 of 4 in March. Besides those 9 games they rattled off 10-of-11 at the beginning of 2023, then 10 straight between the two cold snaps, and then 15-of-16 to close the season (35-2). That pattern of play is how a historically great team can lose a series.

- Their next run of 10-out-of-11 was imminent, and that's what has me so disappointed. They just needed to get through this and they couldn't.

- This is the worst collapse for a historically great team since... 2019. The Presidents trophy curse continues.

- This team was not a bunch of frauds and were the best team I've ever watched play. The had 6 streaks of 6+ wins in a row, what a privilege it was to watch that. These hot takes are going to drive me nuts over the next few days.

For some inexplicable reason, the fabric of this team revealed itself in game 2. Montgomery had 5 games to respond to game two. Plan around it, watch tape, coach--do his job. He failed. He could not reach this team. He's not the only one who had trouble reaching teams with this core. Cassidy couldn't over and over again. You can say, well then it's not the coach, it's the players. That's probably partially true at least, and now with a change in leadership, we'll find out. I'll always appreciate the legacy of Bergie and Krecji, and simultaneously regret it in some ways. They were chokers, and guys who tried to be overly tough instead of taking rest, preparing for the playoffs. I'm deaf to their narrative. I'm growing deaf to Chris Sale's too. You can only listen to the same thing, the same BS and not see action from the speakers so many times, then it's obvious who they really are. These guys were chokers, and did not demand accountability from people who didn't deliver over and over and over again.

Lindholm was trash from about 75% of the way through the season. No idea why. Someone needed to get into the guys face. Ask him for more. He's just an example. There are a dozen of these guys who stopped improving, stopped correcting tendencies. One strategy by the Panthers completely broke a team billed as one of the best in history. They could not make adjustments. I've never heard anyone in any sport say their game on some level wasn't about adjustments. The Bruins stayed in one track and didn't adjust. It's was painful to watch and I found the team embarrassingly bad.

Ullmark ought to be traded if a major haul is possible. He's not a playoff goalie. If the system can get restocked at all by moving him it should happen. Still stuck with so many bloated contracts relative to performance I don't know that the team has a shot until Coyle, Foligno, Reilly, et. al are cleared off and a couple of prospects turn into something.

The lightning used it as fuel to win multiple cups immediately after. This time we won’t have that opportunity due to age and cap unfortunately

I’m doing a full tear down this off-season if I’m Sweeney. I’d keep Pasta/Zacha/McAvoy/Swayman/Frederic/Lauko. Every other established player is moved to recoup future assets that we’ve lost going for it. I’d send Marchand to a true contender. Everybody else goes to top bidder

Fair on the Yankees, but Falcons I can't take. Bruins lost 3 straight games (3 games at home) and had leads in game 6 and 7. The icing on the cake is that the Bruins had a leaf for about a minute left in game 7 and lost. It was just a multitude of things going wrong while being, "the greatest regular season team of all time".

I would agree that losing at the very end is a worse feeling, but you have to admit that it's more of a joke if you can't win 1 lousy round. You made a mockery of the league all season and came within 1 minute of winning the first series and blew it.

Yeah I mean it's basically one epic collapse (28-3 lead) vs 3 minor but consecutive fails (1 goal leads).

I agree it's more embarrassing to lose first round, at least you can hold your head high if you make the Super Bowl.  But I also think that says more about the NHL and hockey than it does about the Bruins.  The Stanley Cup Playoffs are always super tight and competitive, and there just isn't as much difference between a 1 and an 8 seed as there is in other sports.  Plus there's a lot more luck/random variance in a hockey game than sports like football or basketball. The President's Cup Curse is, of course, not actually something supernatural or even that extraordinary...it's just a reflection of these facts.

His decisions seem completely indefensible to me.  I'm not sure how anyone takes the other side on this one.

I’m willing to keep Montgomery around but yeah, that was a badly coached series