Bruins strive for better ‘discipline’ and results against the Stars – Field Level Media – Professional sports content solutions

The Boston Bruins return home from a three-game Western Conference road trip to face an early-season leader in the Dallas Stars on Thursday.

Coach Jim Montgomery’s team went 1-1-1 on the trip and fell to 3-3-1 overall after suffering a 4-0 loss Tuesday in Nashville, where the Predators went 0-0. 5 start.

Penalty killing continued to be a key issue for the Bruins as they led the league with 100 minutes and 39 minor games.

“It’s discipline,” Montgomery said. “We receive far too many stick penalties. You want to prevent scoring opportunities and get good penalties, and usually you will thwart them. We had too many in the offensive zone and we have to improve that.”

Even before putting Nashville on the power play six times, Montgomery opted for an almost complete reshuffle of his lines, leaving only the so-called fourth line of John Beecher, Mark Kastelic and Cole Koepke together as the hot start began.

In the end, the Bruins had to sit out in Nashville for the first time this season and only conceded one goal (Koepke) in the last two games.

The season has been a bit difficult for some veterans so far, including captain Brad Marchand, who has yet to score a goal. Free agent signing Nikita Zadorov was whistled for a penalty in every game.

Montgomery’s message to his team was to “just keep working,” he said. “We cannot defeat ourselves. It’s a long season. … We have to get better and better every day.”

With three straight home games on the horizon, the Bruins are looking to turn the contest into results.

“I thought the guys fought hard (on Tuesday). “It’s hard to win in this league,” Zadorov said. “We played against a really desperate team. … They took advantage of their chances. We didn’t do it. That was the difference in the game.”

After a four-game winning streak to start the season, Dallas has lost two of three games, including Tuesday’s 4-2 loss to Buffalo in which there was no comeback.

Thomas Harley and Tyler Seguin scored for the Stars. Jake Oettinger, whose .941 save percentage ranks sixth in the NHL this season, made 21 stops.

However, coach Peter DeBoer saw a hungrier team on the other side. That has to change to win in Boston.

“I thought the story of the game (Tuesday) was that (the Sabers’) execution was better than ours,” DeBoer said. “Power play included, but also 5-on-5. And I thought they were hungrier than us. They blocked more shots, they won more battles, won more faceoffs. It’s hard to go away and win when you’re not as desperate as the other team.”

One problem of the season was the Stars’ 2-for-21 power play. On a 3-0 night in Buffalo, they went without a shot on goal despite having two advantages in the first period.

Despite a 30-25 advantage in shots for the game, Dallas was unable to overcome a 3-0 deficit and, as DeBoer noted, blocked 11 fewer shots than Buffalo (27-16).

“It seems like we haven’t really found it yet this year,” Stars captain Jamie Benn said. “I think tonight was probably just kind of a reflection of our 5-on-5 game. Just not working hard enough, not working hard enough away from the puck, not supporting the puck, not winning duels and face-offs.”

In Buffalo, defenseman Matt Dumba returned after missing four games with a lower-body injury.

–Field level media