By Ronnie Chua @ Shutterstock.com
The Boston Globe’s Dan Shaughnessy recently spoke with Harry Sinden on the Bruins playoff chances:
“They’re definitely a contender,” says the 91-year-old Bruin-in-Winter. “I’m not on top of the team, but from what I’ve seen, they are a reasonable contender. I think they have a good chance to advance. I couldn’t call them the No. 1 team, but they’re going to give anyone a heck of a time.”
A player, head coach, general manager, and Boston Garden king of hockey, Sinden first came to the Bruins organization as a player/coach in Kingston, Ontario, in 1961. Today he watches games on TV from his home north of Boston, and as “Senior Advisor to the Owner and Alternate Governor,” he ranks fourth on the team masthead, trailing only owners Jeremy and Charlie Jacobs, and team president Cam Neely. Sinden traded for Neely in 1986, and drafted today’s GM, Don Sweeney, in 1984.
Coming into the postseason, the Bruins’ top questions seem to be their recent power-play slump, and the prospect of coach Jim Montgomery alternating goalies Jeremy Swayman and Linus Ullmark throughout the playoffs.
The once-potent Boston power play ranked 13th in the NHL during the regular season. Like a lot of us who watch from afar, Sinden would like to see more shots.
“I’ve found that when a power play goes kind of sour, teams try to correct it with one more pass,” he says. “What you should really do is correct it with one more shot. That’s what you do.”
Regarding David Pastrnak’s lone power-play goal in the last 34 games, Sinden says, “He’s probably passing once too often.”
Same with Charlie McAvoy.
“I talked to him when he first came to the team,” says Sinden, “and I told him, ‘You got to shoot. You get yourself in the perfect position and that’s why you’re on the point, because you get in the position you get in. So shoot!’
“Raymond [Bourque] would always take that shot. For a while, [Bobby] Orr would not take it on the power play. [Johnny] Bucyk would pass it to Bobby, and Bobby would pass it back to him or to someone else, but he finally starting shooting it.”
When the Bruins won the Stanley Cup in 1970 with the 37-year-old Sinden behind the bench, Sinden started goalie Gerry Cheevers in 13 of 14 playoff games. Two years later, Bruins coach Tom Johnson alternated Cheevers with Eddie Johnston and the Bruins won the Cup again. When the Bruins won their only Cup since ’72 in 2011, coach Claude Julien rode goalie Tim Thomas all the way.
“Let’s say the goalie you start the series with wins the first game,” posits Sinden. “Now you’re going to take him out after they won? Then you put the other guy in and he loses? Or he wins? It just makes it so complex.
“I think you have to pick your goalie who you want to start the series and play him at least until he loses.”
Sinden applauds the Bruins for filling the voids left by centers Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci, and likes most everything about first-year captain Brad Marchand.
“I really loved [Zdeno] Chara as a captain, but Marchand is filling in excellently,” Sinden says. “He’s got an edge to him.
“Sometimes the players pay more attention to the captain than they do to the coaches — not regarding how to play, but how to behave. Marchand is good at that and he raises [expletive] if somebody is out of line.
“I would have liked him on my team. Along with Bucyk, he’s the best left winger we’ve had since I’ve been here.”
Sinden is not quite as enthused about streaky left winger Jake DeBrusk, who asked to be traded when Bruce Cassidy was coach and will be an unrestricted free agent July 1.
“There’s always a DeBrusk on the team,” Sinden chuckles. “I think there’s always one. He’s a pretty good player, it’s not that, and a really good skater, and he got over his antics for a while.”
Sinden confessed that he worried more about the possibility of playing Tampa Bay instead of Toronto in Round 1.
“Toronto is a good team and they have such a following up there,” he says. “They’re like a New York team. But we had a pretty good record against them [4-0 in 2023-24], and they always overestimate themselves. They haven’t won a Stanley Cup since 1967.”
And they haven’t beaten the Bruins in a playoff series since 1959.
E.J. Smith - Your Survival Guy
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