Game Plan
Part of Boston’s game is clogging up the neutral zone and defensive zone to limit their opponent’s possession time and ability to generate offense. Head coach André Tourigny discussed how Utah needs to counteract this part of the Bruins game.
“The way Boston plays, they clog the middle in their zone, they clog the neutral zone a lot. So, it’ll be a different style of game. It’s tough to generate speed against that team and the common theme is you need to work off the forecheck. Because the way they clog the neutral zone, that will be the way to generate possession and attack, quick strike and loose puck recovery, that kind of stuff. That is what we need to be focused on.”
Back-to-Back
The Bruins enter tonight’s game on the second half of a back-to-back. Tourigny discussed facing teams in this situation:
“First, you need to play you’re A game,” Tourigny said. “That’s the first thing you need to establish. You need to go out there and establish your game, your identity, the way you want to play, especially early in the year. But even through the year, you need to play your game. Then from there, obviously you know they will play four lines, you know they will do those kind of things. Sometimes you can take some decisions behind the bench to try to take advantage of (the fact that) they might be tired or so forth. But if you look at the push Calgary had in the third period, even if they were on the back-to-back, so you can’t take that for granted in the NHL and you will get an NHL effort from the other team.”
Refocus and Reset
When the Mammoth have gone through a stretch of play that they haven’t liked, the group has refocused and come back stronger. This resiliency is something the team has established early. Veteran defenseman Nate Schmidt discussed this on Saturday:
“I love how we’ve approached a period that we didn’t like,” Schmidt shared. “I feel that energy in the room of not being ok with it, but also knowing that it’s happening, and having the awareness that we need to have a turnaround period. I think that’s a big step for a team to make. It’s one thing to do it once, twice, it’s another to do it repetitively.”
Keep Improving
As the Mammoth enter the sixth game of the regular season, it’s all about building off the improvements they’ve made as a group.
“82 games, it’s a race for improvement,” Tourigny explained. “We’re far from the finish line; we need to improve. We have stuff we do improve. I’m proud of the focus of the guys, the way they commit to what we have to do. You can see in our last two games how much our inside game improved, the quickness of our offense, our breakout improved, our forecheck improved. So now we need to keep going. We’re not there yet, but we’re in better shape.”
