- 3 months ago
Pavel Zacha rumors true?? Zacha on the move? Bruins/NESN PBP announcer Judd Sirott joins! Sirott: "Apparently conversations have been taking place since last summer"
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00:00In Arlington. Good morning. How are you?
00:02Morning. All good. Little challenge getting here, but that's all right.
00:05Oh, yeah. Did Ken not tell you about the road construction and everything being shut down?
00:10No, that's okay. Unfortunately, my chopper was not available today for me to just kind of drop in.
00:15Well, they're redoing the whole thing over here, and they're doing a fine job on it, but it's inconvenient.
00:22So I'm glad you finally made it in.
00:24And, I mean, interesting week for the Bruins.
00:25I was there Saturday. I think I brought them good luck. No Hillman jinx.
00:31They beat a really good hockey team, and then you go to Edmonton, all of you, and you are atrocious, and you get blown out, and then you come back and beat the Islanders.
00:42So what is this team from your perspective now here?
00:46I think we're still trying to find that out.
00:48You know, the sample size is getting a little bit bigger, so now they've played 12 games.
00:52You know, and if you look across the 12 games, you mentioned the game in Ottawa.
00:56That's the one game where the Bruins were not competitive, and it was almost a flashback to the season before.
01:02And the way that the first period started against the Islanders, you're down 2-0 in the first five minutes.
01:07So now you start to think, okay, what do we have here?
01:10And they were able to bounce back and score five unanswered goals.
01:13So I think, you know, Greg, in answer to your question, I think that they're a team that's still trying to find its identity, which is how to play hard defensively and being that hard out.
01:24We had the GM, Don Sweeney, on the other day, and, you know, one of the things that he talked about is they're still, as a team, having problems with the system that Marco Sturm is putting in place.
01:35You know, and at this point, I think he feels like the onus is on the players, both individually and collectively, to be able to pick that up.
01:43So let's see how they respond.
01:45Can the Bruins finish this month of October with a couple of wins against the Sabres?
01:50You're going to see Carolina here on Saturday afternoon.
01:53That would move you back to .500 and still keep you in the mix.
01:56The rumors about Pavel Zaka, the Canucks, they have interest in him.
02:00I know the Bruins have come out and said that they see Pavel as a long-term guy here.
02:05Where do you fall on that?
02:07Pavel Zaka is a really valuable player.
02:09He's a top-six forward who can play center and wing.
02:12He can check.
02:13He's skilled.
02:14He can play on both your special teams units.
02:17He's going to generate a lot of attention around the National Hockey League and provide a lot of value.
02:20I think the team that, listen, Elliot Friedman is one of the most respected guys in our business, and the name that he connected it to was the Vancouver Canucks.
02:28And apparently these conversations have been taking place since last summer.
02:31Listen, most of these general managers, they're talking about all sorts of players with all sorts of teams.
02:36Jimmy Rutherford, just as a sidebar, he's been around for a long time, Hall of Fame general manager in the National Hockey League.
02:43He's typically a guy that likes to strike fast rather than just before the trade deadline.
02:48So I'm sure that there have been some conversations about Pavel Zaka, but he's a really valuable piece for the Bruins.
02:54And if you want to be a competitive team in the East, you probably got to hold on to him.
02:58When you say, like, they are not getting Marco's system, like, what are they not figuring out?
03:07What is it that they're not able to get what he wants them to do?
03:13Well, I think the word that Donnie Sweeney brought up was overcompensation, and maybe you've seen this when you were playing in the NFL,
03:19that I think that too often there would be one mistake, and then it gets compounded by two more mistakes, and then everybody's out of position.
03:28Had a conversation with Morgan Geeky before the game in Ottawa, and he said, you know, if you look at the film, and this was before the Colorado game,
03:34if you look at the video, part of the problem is we will leave good ice, the front of the net, protecting the house, to go check the bad ice.
03:42And there are too many people who are trying, I think, to cover up for mistakes that maybe one other guy would make,
03:50and then it just starts to compound itself.
03:52So that's the issue.
03:53That's what they're trying to nail down.
03:55Because I think, like, from watching it, so that's the thing that I've noticed in some of these games,
04:00is there's a lot of guys free in front of the net, and, you know, there's nobody.
04:06Before, we used to talk about defensemen clearing those guys out from front of the net,
04:09but it seems like there's a lot of guys in front of Swaymon or even Corposalo,
04:15and we tend to be like, well, why didn't the goalie make that stop?
04:17Well, if there's nobody trying to clear a guy out in front, I feel like you're seeing a lot of screen goals.
04:24Well, I think, you know, the problem is if you look across the first 12 games,
04:28and I don't have the analytics in front of me, so there's the status high danger chances.
04:33You know, and the Bruins, depending on who you look at and when, they're near the top of that.
04:38So that's why I think that you see the goalie's numbers the way they are.
04:42Look at Jonas Corposalo's performance the other night.
04:45Number one star, he had to be.
04:47They were giving up some wide-open chances.
04:49Yes, they rallied from two down in order to win,
04:51but those are the chances that you have to cut down.
04:54He was on that breakaway, like back-to-back shots on, you know,
04:59stopped the shot and stopped the rebound.
05:01He's been great.
05:03Like, he has been great.
05:04He's been really good.
05:05But the defense is not helping.
05:07No, no.
05:07You know, in the game that you went to against Colorado,
05:09who was the number one star in the game?
05:11Jeremy Swaymon.
05:12I think that that's part of the issue here early on.
05:14Listen, the goalies have done their part,
05:16but I think that the issues are not in net.
05:19They're in front of what's happening in net.
05:21Your goalie can't be the number one star every single night.
05:26So hopefully they're able to start to pick that up
05:29and get a little bit of traction with their system.
05:32You know, go back to the game that you mentioned
05:33against the Colorado Avalanche.
05:35Avs opened the scoring, 1-0.
05:37And now you're thinking, uh-oh.
05:38And the first 14 minutes of that game, they were dominant.
05:43The Bruins had an awfully hard time.
05:45Even when they got the puck, they couldn't do anything with it,
05:48going tape to tape to break out of their own zone.
05:51That's another problem that we should probably get to.
05:54But, you know, I think for the Bruins,
05:57if they can start to tighten up a little bit more defensively,
06:00they'll have the puck more.
06:01If they can break out more,
06:02they're going to spend less time in their own zone,
06:04stay out of the box.
06:06They're taking still too many penalties.
06:08I think it'll help this team.
06:09Is Charlie McAvoy the guy?
06:11I do.
06:12You think he is?
06:13You're paying him $9.5 million or whatever you're paying him.
06:16Is he the guy?
06:17I do.
06:18You know, I think that the challenge is a little bit different for him this year.
06:20And this is another thing that Brick and I had a chance to talk with Donnie Sweeney about.
06:26So it's a different challenge here.
06:27You know, we've talked about the leadership with this team.
06:30So now you have guys in David Pasternak, Charlie McAvoy,
06:33some of the other guys that you've signed long-term, Jeremy Swayman.
06:37Now you're asking these guys to lead from the front,
06:40where maybe they haven't had to do that as much in the past,
06:43and they have to make sure that they're on top of their game.
06:46And that's a balancing act.
06:47But going back to what you said about Marco Sturm
06:50and them not just being able to grasp, I guess, his game plan for them yet,
06:55isn't that more on the players, though?
06:57Like, don't you need a player in that dressing room to stand up and be that leader?
07:01Like, I think Patrice Bergeron was that for so long,
07:04and whether it was Bruce Cassidy or other coaches,
07:07they didn't really have to do a lot of the coaching because Patrice would handle it.
07:10No, you know, the one caveat I will add to that, though, Courtney,
07:14and this is where Marco Sturm said I need to be a little bit more patient,
07:17that a lot of these guys, whether it's Charlie McAvoy, David Pasternak,
07:21two leaders in that room, were playing a different system.
07:24These guys have never seen another system.
07:27And it's not that dramatically different from what the Bruins had played in the past.
07:31So very simply, from the top of the circles to the blue line, man-on-man.
07:35From the top of the circles down, layered system,
07:38exactly the way that the Bruins had played in the past.
07:41There is some nuance to it, and they're having a hard time picking it up.
07:44And I think for some of these guys who've never played anything different,
07:47it's taken a couple of games.
07:50John, has there been, in the conversations you had with Don Sweeney,
07:53is there any sort of regret for how he may have misread the market with Marchand?
07:59I've never had that conversation with him.
08:04And when you say that, as far as where do you think the market was or how he wanted to play it?
08:11I believe that they were nowhere near each other when there was a negotiation prior to trading him.
08:16I think that Brad has signaled the desire to play five, six more years,
08:21and I think they were probably looking at a two-to-three bridge with him to maintain the captain
08:26and get the next generation.
08:28And just seeing how you're performed and where he is,
08:31it just seems like if this is the Patriots or the Celtics or the Red Sox GM,
08:36they are never living that down.
08:38Well, I think that they understood the market in the sense that,
08:40I think they understood that Marchand valued himself at a certain level as far as dollars.
08:46I think they got to the years, but it's the dollars they just couldn't come to an agreement on.
08:52So do you think that Sweeney was surprised by how he performed with the Panthers?
08:57No, no, I don't believe that at all.
08:59I think if there's one guy that Donnie Sweeney understands how good he is and how valuable he is,
09:05it's a guy in Brad Marchand.
09:07You know, and even listening to Marchand's comments after he left,
09:11you know, I think the way I interpret it is he could understand where Donnie Sweeney
09:18and the Bruins are in the organization and what they needed to do moving forward.
09:23So I don't know that he sensed that there was, he mismanaged the market
09:31because there's always going to be a team out there that's going to pay a lot of dollars.
09:36Like for a guy like Brad Marchand.
09:38Well, that team just happens to win cup after cup after cup, by the way.
09:40Well, let's take the Utah Mammoth.
09:43Since we were out there earlier this season,
09:44I think that they were a team that definitely wanted to spend the money
09:48to bring a guy like Brad Marchand in.
09:50Would Brad Marchand go to the Utah Mammoth, you know,
09:53for the position that the organization is in?
09:55Well, Sean loves their mascot.
09:58Tuck's cup, right?
09:59He's awesome.
10:01See, I thought it was the...
10:02That's a win, by the way, out there.
10:03That's going to be a great franchise.
10:05Hey, Wiggy, did you ask Tyra Banks about the Mammoth?
10:07No, no.
10:08John, I thought it was the years, the money that was more of the issue.
10:15Like the Bruins were like, all right, we'll give you the money,
10:19but we don't want to give you the six years, right?
10:22I thought that's kind of...
10:23No, I think it was the money because he brought up...
10:26Didn't he bring up six and a half?
10:28I thought it was seven at one point.
10:30So the Bruins offered a pay raise.
10:31It was six, seven.
10:32They're on record saying that they offered him a pay raise.
10:36I think what Florida did was they spread out the money because, all right,
10:41the National Hockey League is a hard cap system.
10:44You have to be able to manage your team under the cap.
10:46There are certain dates where you have to be compliant under the cap.
10:50And now, far down the road, in the playoffs, it's different.
10:54There will be a salary cap in the playoffs with the new collective bargain agreement.
10:58So you can't go over and above and beyond the way some teams have done in the past,
11:03whether it's Patrick Kane or Nikita Kucharov, who are on IR, came off and played.
11:07So it's a little bit harder for these general managers.
11:10So let's say you had a player across a three-year term paying $10 million.
11:17All right, well, it's a hard cap.
11:19That's going to impact what your roster is going to look like
11:22versus a guy who might be making three at seven.
11:26Hopefully that makes sense.
11:29But I think Marchand had a number as far as salary that he wanted to earn.
11:34But I don't necessarily think that he had a six-year deal in mind.
11:39I don't think anybody did around the National Hockey League.
11:41The Bruins were obviously willing to meet him at three,
11:44but it's the dollar figure that I think that was a sticking point.
11:48All right, Sabres tonight.
11:50Yes, second time.
11:52They haven't won a game on the road.
11:53Bruins had a good performance against them in the first outing.
11:56Sabres a little bit healthier maybe than the Bruins saw them last.
12:01You know, I think one of the things that we're going to have to watch is,
12:04okay, does Mason Lorai come back into the lineup after being a healthy scratch?
12:09Hopefully Hampus Lindholm is a guy that gains some traction.
12:12What are the combinations up front?
12:13Because Marco Sturm kind of juggled him around here in the last couple of games.
12:17Nice to see your predecessor there with a huge round of applause on Saturday.
12:21And Jack looks like he's doing well.
12:24Yeah, you know, actually had a chance to catch up with him.
12:26He actually was at the game.
12:28I'm all lost on what day is today.
12:31But if it's Tuesday.
12:32Today's Thursday.
12:33Saturday.
12:34Game day, baby.
12:35Saturday was when he stood up in the box.
12:37Yes.
12:37He was actually at the game also on Tuesday, Greg.
12:40So we had a chance to catch up.
12:41He's doing well.
12:41I thought it was weird in the box he had his full lineup card done,
12:44which I thought was, I mean, it's not, it was.
12:48Yeah, he held up the three tablets.
12:49That's actually not easy.
12:51That's not easy to do.
12:52So he's doing well.
12:53Yeah, he's doing really well.
12:55You know, I don't think there's just been any change necessarily with his speech.
13:00But, no, his health.
13:02He was in a great mood.
13:04It was great to see him.
13:05Great to catch up.
13:06Is it concerning that he got the loudest round of applause the entire hockey game
13:09for the Boston Bruins?
13:11Is that of any concern?
13:12No, no, no.
13:13He earned it.
13:13Listen, he was there for 19 years.
13:15He set a standard.
13:16Yes, he did.
13:17All right.
13:17Great to see you, Judd.
13:18We'll talk to you again next week.
13:19Great to see you guys.
13:20All right.
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