The sample size for The Joe Sacco Era of Bruins hockey has continued to grow, and is now up to five games for the Black and Gold.

And the results have been somewhere around where you would expect them to be, with the Bruins on the board with a 3-2-0 record.

Perhaps most importantly, though, the club has truly been ‘in’ every game, with their two losses coming by a combined three goals (two if you take out the Conor Garland empty-net goal scored in Vancouver’s 2-0 win over the club last Tuesday). That was not the case under now-Blues head coach Jim Montgomery, for whatever reason, with games often slipping and sliding away from the Bruins — and in unbelievably quick fashion, really — through their first 20 games of the year.

Here are four quick thoughts on what we’ve seen so far…

Bruins feel like a ‘harder out’

Bruins general manager Don Sweeney is as calculated as they come. Everything he says has a layer of security around it, and security he himself has built. It’s sometimes led to … clunkier … communication from Sweeney, at least from his lips to the media and then to the fanbase. But everything he says and does is pretty calculated.

So when Sweeney spoke after Montgomery’s firing and brought up the fact that he wanted more ‘compete’ from his team on a night-in, night-out basis, that felt like the No. 1 thing the Bruins would work on correcting. In practice, and then into games. It was just one of many things that was bugging Sweeney at that point in time, of course, but the lack of compete was taking the team in a direction that Sweeney clearly was uncomfortable falling into further after an overtime loss to St. Louis and the blowout loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets, both of which came on TD Garden ice.

And, again, through five games, and working off that obviously limited sample, that feels like something that the Black and Gold have corrected.

For the Bruins to be the best version of themselves this season, they seemingly have to play with a defense-first mindset. The Bruins talked about adding secondary scoring, but they didn’t. They instead invested in a player who was viewed as a top left-side option on the backend (Nikita Zadorov), the best two-way center available (Elias Lindholm), and acquired a $3 million backup netminder (Joonas Korpisalo) to put behind their $8 million-plus starting netminder.

In other words, it’s no secret that the Bruins need to be a lockdown team.

Sacco has gotten them closer to that. These last two games (Wednesday on Long Island and Friday against the Pens) were slight step backs in that regard, but the Bruins have as a whole cut back on high-danger chances against, and they’ve made it harder for teams to get to “good ice.”

Now, the natural problem within that is that it’s just harder to win games 2-1 than ever before. The natural skill of the players in this league has never been higher, and it’s found all over the lineup. So, for the Bruins to be this team every game, every night from now until the final horn on their 2024-25 campaign is going to be exceedingly difficult.

But it is how they have to play, and it feels like they are undoubtedly closer to having that truly be part of their DNA.

Bruins still need more from their top dogs

We know the Bruins are going to struggle to be a five-on-five juggernaut. But when it comes to attacking-zone opportunities, and particularly those chances with the Bruins up a man, there’s no denying that the Bruins gotta get more from David Pastrnak and Charlie McAvoy.

I’ve long said that Pastrnak is the only player that the Bruins have who possesses that true ‘takeover’ ability on a nightly basis. You’ve seen it in spurts this season. The Toronto game in Boston comes to mind there, and same for Boston’s road win in St. Louis earlier this month.

But for the Bruins to be at their best, it’s gotta be nightly.

I’d honestly put McAvoy in that group, too. McAvoy isn’t ever gonna be a Cale Makar or Roman Josi, but he does possess the ability to upend a game in the right direction for his team in any zone. That’s a quality that would’ve made McAvoy a perennial Norris contender in the post-2005 to 2014 or so era of NHL hockey, and it’s one that’s still immensely valuable.

But for these guys, it really does begin in the attacking zone, and on the power play. The Bruins need quicker decisions from these guys, and they need to unlock the mental block that’s leading to telegraphed plays that are being intercepted and low-percentage looks after plays and options die on ‘em as a result of holding the puck into nothingness.

Swayman-Korpisalo rounding into form

For Bruins netminder Jeremy Swayman, the 2024-25 season has been a mixed bag. There were some ugly games early and often out of the gate, but following a recent (and impromptu) ‘mini training camp’ between himself and B’s goalie coach Bob Essensa, the 26-year-old Swayman feels closer to himself.

And the play is starting to show as much, even if the goal support hasn’t been there.

Peppered for 36 shots in Friday’s loss to the Pens, Swayman turned aside 34, and has now stopped 66 of 70 shots over his last three starts, which is good for a .943 save percentage. Swayman himself will quibble with the goals against — he overcommitted to deny Sidney Crosby a wraparound goal on Pittsburgh’s first goal and was probably caught hand-fighting with Drew O’Connor a little too much on the Penguins’ second and final goal of the evening — but on the list of the Bruins’ problems in the losing effort, there’s no doubt that Swayman was dead last. Which is how it needs to be for this goal-starved team most nights, for better or worse.
And, listen, hand up… I was wrong about the Bruins’ ability to ‘fix’ Korpisalo and get him back to being a serviceable NHL goaltender. I did not love that gamble for Boston, but through the first leg of the season, it’s been a definite win for Boston, with the Korpisalo-Swayman tandem posting a .925 save percentage at five-on-five play, which is the 9th-best in the NHL.
With coaching ‘settled’ for now, a trade should follow

Prior to the Montgomery firing, there were rumors that the Bruins were scouring the market for a potential ‘shake-up’ kind of trade. And now, even with the coaching change, I do think that’s the next move for this club.

To keep it simple here, the Bruins should be in the market for basically any player who can provide some more speed and pop to this forward group, and at this point, I think you’d even settle for a power-play specialist to help bring the Black and Gold’s 31st-ranked power play back to life.

Cap space is a definite issue for the club, but the Bruins also have some players with some uncertain futures, such as Morgan Geekie (pending RFA) and Trent Frederic (pending UFA), both of whom shouldn’t be considered off limits if the Bruins have any doubts about their futures in town.

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