In a dialog with reporters about his goaltending rotation, coach Jim Montgomery just about named Linus Ullmark his beginning goalie for Game 1 of the playoffs.
Surprise, shock. Ullmark is the odds-on favourite for Vezina Trophy because the league’s finest netminder.
But so far as persevering with the goalie rotation into the playoffs? Montgomery wasn’t precisely leaning that manner, however he wasn’t ruling it out, both.
“We would have no issues with it. I don’t know if we’re going to do that,” stated Montgomery on Thursday. “Most likely Linus is going to start the first game. Then we’ll see how it goes from game to game. I’m not going to commit to anything beyond Game 1.”
It would make little sense for Montgomery to say a lot else. Declaring that Ullmark goes to get all of the begins wouldn’t be sending an incredible message to Jeremy Swayman, who went into Thursday’s sport towards the Canadiens driving a 144:52 shutout streak and had his save share as much as .920 and objectives towards right down to 2.20. For some playoff-bound groups, Swayman can be the unquestioned Game 1 starter. No purpose to not maintain him mentally prepared.
But leaving the door open does make one surprise if Montgomery would make a change in internet within the playoffs that’s not health- or performance-related.
And Montgomery couldn’t argue with the success that the rotation has given each the B’s as a staff and the goaltenders individually.
“I do think there’s a physical and mental benefit,” stated Montgomery. “They’re playing four games every week. They’re each getting two games a week. Two games a week is a significant (amount). It’s perfect, really, when you have a split. It’s not perfect for the (skaters), it’s perfect for the goalies. We’re fortunate. We have two elite goaltenders and they obviously are great teammates. I think their goalie hug is something I admire form afar. It spoke to the togetherness and spoke to the Bruins’ culture and I think it’s awesome.”….
Thursday’s sport was the one and solely time the Montreal Canadiens are in Boston this yr and simply one in every of three events they’ll meet. That’s a far cry from the previous days and Montgomery, a Montreal native, misses them. He’d prefer to see extra divisional video games.
“Montreal, for sure,” stated Montgomery. “Montreal and the Bruins seemed to play each other every year in the playoffs the whole decade of the Seventies…and then the Eighties when it was the Adams Division back then. It seemed like they would each beat Buffalo and Quebec and meet in the next round. I wish we played that team in particular more. It’s the black-and-gold against the red, white and blue. It’s the tradition of the game for me.”
But for Brad Marchand, the rivalries sprout organically from the post-season. And for Montreal-Boston, it’s been some time, 2014 to be precise
“The rivalries nowadays are made in the playoffs and we haven’t played them that much lately as maybe in the past,” stated Marchand. “For Montreal, they’re building and they’re younger. They’re going to be a really good team in the future. They have some incredible talent coming up. But we’re in a little bit of a different position and we’ve played Toronto and Tampa a lot recently. I feel more of a rivalry with Toronto and Tampa now than necessarily Montreal. It’s just with all of us being three contending teams, we’ve had some really good playoffs battles over the last few years….There were a few years in the mid-2000s when we did play Montreal in the playoffs and we had wars against them. Every regular season game. It was an absolute battle and you can tell we hated them. There will always be a rivalry just because of the history with Montreal, but when we play Toronto and Tampa, there’s just a different intensity to the games. That’s just part of the way the league is with the cap and everything. You can only be that contending team for so long and then you have to wait for draft picks.”…
After the success of the World Baseball Classic, Connor McDavid lobbied for the same best-on-best event. For Marchand, who performed within the World Cup of Hockey however was twice denied probabilities to go to the Olympics, it’s all concerning the 5 rings.
“I still don’t think there’s anything that compares to the Olympics,” stated Marchand. “The World Cup is fun and everything, but the Olympics is the Olympics and that’s really the true best-on-best. The NHL has seemed to be getting away from that and replace it with the World Cup because of the money value. But the Olympics is always what you watched growing up, whether it’s the Canada-US, the games I watched growing up and got excited about….I don’ think there’s anything that replaces that. It would be nice to the NHL get back there for the next one.”…
While Montgomery stated Taylor Hall seemed actually good on Wednesday, he doesn’t know of the wing will be capable to get in any common season video games.
“He’s got some hurdles here still in our process of returning to play to go through. Not certain either way,” stated Montgomery…
Before Montgomery got here into the interview room for his day by day press briefing, Marchand preceded him into the room and gave a mock harm replace.
Hall? “Looks good. I think he’s playing tonight.”
And Nick Foligno’s standing? “Still old. Still bald.”
Source: www.bostonherald.com