Kalman: For One Night At Least, Bruins Self-Motivate To Victory
BOSTON (CBS) - For those looking for a turning-point event that made the Bruins that played like pushovers in Columbus on Saturday suddenly play like a team that belongs in the playoffs against Detroit on Monday, center Chris Kelly said you're wasting your time.
"Sometimes there are speeches and players meetings and coaches meetings. But for the most part that wasn't the case," said Kelly after he had one goal and one assist in the Bruins' 5-2 win against the Red Wings at TD Garden. "It was us realizing that we need to be better. We're a good hockey team and when everyone plays well and plays this system and is focused. And when it's not there we're an average hockey team and I think we need to have that effort that we had tonight consistently."
Kelly was pressed for anything that might've resembled a chair throwing by a coach or a chant from one of his teammates.
"There was no rah-rah speech. There was no Rudy Ruettiger speech, where you stand on the stool and give it a rah rah," he said.
Had the Bruins laid an egg against the Red Wings, maybe their leaders or coaches would've regretted missing the opportunity to write themselves into Bruins folklore with a speech or fit of rage for the ages. Instead the Bruins proved they didn't need any such spark. The message came in loud and clear after the Blue Jackets embarrassed the Bruins 6-2.
They're grownups and they don't need some hokey cheerleader act to smack some life into them.
"We have no other choice," center David Krejci said. "We're outside of the playoffs looking in. This is the only way. After a loss, correct some mistakes and just play the way we did today. That's our only option at this moment and we have to put some wins together right now."
Said goaltender Tuukka Rask: "Yeah, we recognized after that game on Saturday that the way we were playing for the most part this season is not going to be good enough to make the playoffs, and it's time to change that and today we showed again when we play the way we're supposed to play how good we can be and it's just this is it now. That's got to be our hockey."
When the Bruins are at their best, you can tell right away because their forecheck is heavy and forcing turnovers. Right from the outset against Detroit, that forecheck was there. And it took just 2:44 for the Bruins to grind down the Red Wings below the goal line and set up Reilly Smith for the first goal of the game.
Already facing the adversity of losing Patrice Bergeron and Milan Lucic to injury and popular teammate Matt Fraser to waivers, the Bruins could have folded up their tents when the Red Wings tied the score 1-1 later in the period. In recent games one goal against, one bad bounce or controversial goal typically through the Bruins into a tailspin. But that didn't happen Monday.
Gregory Campbell and Carl Soderberg both scored goals around the Detroit net to give the Bruins a 3-1 lead they did not relinquish.
That the Bruins were self-motivated enough to make amends for their debacle Saturday night might bode well for them and their leadership group down the road. Recent lackluster performances, especially the Columbus game, have made the departure of reliable leaders Shawn Thornton, Jarome Iginla and Johnny Boychuk more glaring. There was merit in the argument that maybe the Bruins had not only gone soft on the ice but also were also lacking guidance in the dressing room.
Even coach Claude Julien questioned his team's character when he said the Bruins' room had been "livelier" in the past. There was obviously some shell shock settling in. A crucial victory against an Atlantic Division opponent like Detroit, however, has a way of curing those types of ills.
General manager Peter Chiarelli is on record as saying he's shopping for help at forward. He might even consider upgrading his defense. If the Bruins strung together a few performances like the Columbus one in a row, though, he was going to have to go out and get a leader or two to straighten things out. Whatever happened between Saturday and Monday worked. For the first time maybe all season the Bruins played the full game the way Chiarelli, Julien and many thought they'd be playing from the start of the season.
Explosive speeches only work a certain number of times. Luckily the Bruins didn't waste one on a December game against Detroit. Maybe down the road they'll have to release one when things get really desperate. The Bruins remain out of the top eight in the Eastern Conference, but at least for one night they made sure they wouldn't lose ground.
Of course, now comes the toughest part: duplicating the Detroit effort on Wednesday against Toronto and beyond.
"We kind of talked about a bunch of things [Sunday] and it seems like it worked today but like I said before, we did it before and followed up with a bad game," Krejci said. "We don't need to have talks like we did before this game and just go out there and realize what you're playing for and we got to get back in the hunt. It was a good game today but we have to follow up with another one."
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