Boston Bruins vs. Anaheim Ducks | Game Preview | 10/23/2025
[Music] Well, it’s hockey fights cancer night here at TV Garden. The Bruins wearing those beautiful lavender jerseys that they’re going to wear in warm-ups as we see the alternates come into the room. They’ve got a tall task. The whole team does obviously and they’ve all got to click together as they try to snap this fivegame losing streak. And with that, we’re going to welcome you into our beautiful Wasabi Studios uh for presented by Jordan’s Furniture. Sorry guys, Sophia, Billy, and Barry here with you. Uh guys, it’s no secret that the Bruins are on this fivegame losing streak, and they’ve got to get out of it. Uh it’s the little details, Marco Sturm was talking about earlier today at Morning Skate. The little details that add up and become big things. The Bruins got to get through that. That they do. Um they’re finding different ways uh not good ways to lose hockey games. My biggest concern was my concern going into the season that the first three games Billy I felt a little better about which was their team defensive structure. Then they went out out west and listen when you’re playing Colorado and uh Las Vegas that’s a tough task but having three and four nights and then traveling you knew Tuesday was going to be tough. But they’ve allowed they’ve been outscored in these five games 21-4. They are allowing 4.2 goals against. That to me has to be the focus. No question about it. Um listen, I I think that they have to play a very I think I know very tough way all year to to be competitive. Yep. Okay. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Meaning sometimes you got to do what you got to do, right? All right. Um, but it’s a hard way to play and I think that you can get mentally tired at times playing that way. With that said, because almost get frustrated. They’re not offensively gifted. We’ve talked about Marco talked about the start the year. It’s no secret, you know, that partner, but that doesn’t mean that they sometimes I almost think they have to instead of pressing so much just to score, just live the sh live the fight another day, shift to shift type of thing. I feel like they’re having breakdowns and I think mentally and then physically they’re getting worn down because it’s so hard at times for them and they’re pushing so hard and then when they start making this is the thing that’s starting to bother me because it does remind me get bit guys like so like last year they make one little mistake and it starts being a few more here kind of and and here’s the other indicator to me that they’re working so hard to score goals right and instead like Barry says defense most important thing right how many times now in the last couple of games have they scored a goal they’ve gone like And what happens within two minutes? Either they take a penalty or the team comes their opposing team comes back and scores. Yeah. Oh, I you ask me this question. Sometimes I don’t even know what I’m saying when I answer that. But Sophia, to me though, to your original part about playing Anaheim here on a Thursday night, you you’d look at the schedule normally, you’d say, “Okay, that’s that’s a game.” No, no, no, no. This is a big game because you do not want this snowball to keep getting any bigger. You’ve got to end it. And the way that game ended on Tuesday with what, how many seconds left? 26 seconds left. Just deflated the whole building and the team. You could feel the frustration in the room afterwards. Yeah. Well, they should have been. Yeah. All right, guys. Let’s take a look though at the numbers. You guys just talked about it, but their first three games over uh the start of the season and then their last five games after that plus five goal differential as you can see minus 7 power play, penalty kill. Marco Sturm spoke about everyone getting on board. We have good people in our rock room. Um, we just try to find everyone, you know, we we try to add pieces pieces and and get them on that bus. Um, and um, you know, and we still need everyone and right now we still there’s still a few missing. So, that’s that’s my job and that’s our job moving forward. Um, you know, to get everyone on board. All right, guys. Uh this morning we had our morning skate show and I thought Jud made a really good point about whether Marco Sturm has his team bought in or not and he said absolutely you can tell for this reason. Many reasons but you can tell for this reason when they do go down early in games and they’ve had those losing streaks the way they come back and the way that they’re not they’re competing until the end. You’d like to see it for the full 60 but he’s not losing them after two periods. In fact, it’s the opposite. Maybe it’s not a great start but then they’re buying in a little later. What are your thoughts on that? Yeah, I absolutely no issue with with what head coach Marcos Sturm is doing and I don’t think the players have any issue with that whatsoever. I think that they he communicates with them. They respect the heck out of him given his pedigree and how he’s trying to make this a better place, a better team. Um, but that doesn’t mean it’s always going to be easy. And it’s not that they’re not listening to him, but sometimes I think they’re not they they they want to do the right thing at times. And yet I think every once in a while it’s like like a Colorado we saw those turnovers, those giveaways and like ah because again I think they just mentally lose it a little bit Barry given how hard they have to work. Yeah. And the beauty of being a consistently good defensive team means that you’re in every game for the most part and it also means that your players are showing up because to your earlier point it’s not easy. So you have to be mentally ready to go. I mean I just for an example we use Patrice Berseron. What made him such a consistent player? It was the fact that he was so good defensively. He had to get into that mindset and show up with that intensity every single game. And that’s what made him so great. All right guys, let’s take a look at the expected D pairs for tonight. Hampus Lynholm not on that because he’s a game time decision, but he was skating with the extras uh after morning skates. Doesn’t feel like he’s going to start the game, you know, or start play this game. Um, Mason Lorai, Charlie Makavoy remain a pair. Zidorov and Peak. So, Zidorov bumps up to play with with Andrew Peak. And then, welcome back, Cali. Callahan back up from Providence playing with Yoki. Haru. Um, listen, you know, Nikita Zidorov has been their best defenseman game in game out all all this season. Peak has had some very solid efforts. Lowry’s been incredibly inconsistent out out there. Um, and that, you know, I think kind of the same could be said at times for Charlie Mackoy. Absolutely. And I think one of the difficult parts about this, Billy, when you get into a streak like this and you’re and you’re trying to be better defensively, and again, we always talk about that also means the forwards got to come back, but you’ve got to take away ice. You’ve got to go and attack as a defender. You need confidence for that. What happens when you lose your confidence when you’re coaching those young kids? What do they do? They back up, right? And as soon as you back up, now you’re vulnerable. Yeah. Uh obvious statement here. I mean He has len him. They need him back. Um but there obviously a little something. He looks good out there in practice. Yeah. But it’s like Razer said, you don’t want to be that player that’s constantly in and out. When you come back in, you want to come back in for good. But that’s that’s hard when you’re in a five game losing streak. You need them, right? Yeah. And I think that they’re doing their best as a team, you know, to not say we really need you back cuz you’re just eight games, nine games into the season, but they really need him back. Yeah. And this is also one of those types of games that you would like to see the forwards get together and say, “Hey, listen. We don’t have Hampus. We got another We lost Harris or whatever.” You know, let’s try and help our defenseman out tonight. Let’s don’t turn the puck over in the neutral zone. If there’s no play at the blue line, what’s the fourth line been doing? Getting it in. Get the energy going. Get the fourchecking game going. Play north south. Be responsible with the puck. That’s what you want your forwards to do. And hopefully that will take a lot of the pressure off your defense as well. All right guys, hot takes presented by Wasabi Technologies, the official cloud storage partner of the Boston Bruins. And we are taking a look at Mason Laura’s game in the last one. He got caught a couple of times exposed. He said on Wednesday, you can’t even take half a second off in the NHL. How does Mason Laurier make adjustments? Well, I think that as we talked about, look at giving up space here, turning the wrong direction. Now all of a sudden it’s these little things. Here’s a loose puck. Got to be strong on that, man. You have got to lay in because these guys are strong. They’re veterans. They got two here. You got to lay the lumber. You got to get a better edge in the neutral zone. You can’t allow the opposing player that much space with that kind of speed. No way. And you know, Verhagy gets the Lena part gets the stride on on him. And you can see Mason’s frustration as he breaks his stick and and and that’s you know what at that point quite honestly so I wouldn’t mind him breaking his stick on on Luceran. You know what I mean? Take the penalty right there. Why not? I I mean um it’s a s it’s a simple game from up here. But you know he’s you can tell that he is struggling with his reads. You can tell that he’s kind of struggling sometimes in the battle. Um and sometimes that he’s right that half second is all it takes. we saw two years ago against Toronto and Florida in the playoffs. I felt like now granted he might be playing different scenarios but those were playoff games and he was really really remember how how really good he was needs a reset. He needs to get back to that and just say I’m going to play the right place. I’m going to be always above the puck or below, you know, not going to be letting guys get behind me right here. Easier said than done, but I think it’s a mindset thing and I think he has to just say I’m going to up my compete level in the battle. I agree. First of all, it starts with the compete level, being strong, as we said, on those one-on-one battles. And he’s so gifted of a skater. Yep. And has big mobility mobility for a big guy. To me, if he just goes out and concentrates totally on playing defense, defensively, as Billy says, on the right side of the puck, taking away your gaps, controlling the layers, I just feel his offense will look after itself. It should. It should. But if you go out there and you try and get on the offensive side, now you’re getting yourself in bad habits. We will sacrif uh we’ll sacrifice his offense. Yeah. Right. For the defense and and just like Denny Pman used to say to me all the time when I was working with the New York Islanders when I met him and he’s like few hundred games 250 300 like for a defenseman to even have an idea of what they’re doing out there. That’s how hard of a position it is to play in the National Hockey League. Yeah. I’m sure that’s been the message from Marco Sturm to his young defenseman Mason Laura.
The Boston Bruins hope to get back in the win column as they take on the Anaheim Ducks. Sophia, Billy, and Barry discuss the match-up on the Ultimate Bruins Show.
