While Mass. public high school hockey still exists, and no doubt is important to every kid who participates, it’s no longer where the gifted build their career CVs. For the past 30-plus years, the preferred path in the Bay State typically has been private schools or junior teams, rendering high school hockey essentially a club version of the sport. Meanwhile, back in Minnesota, where the annual high school championship tournament without fail packs St. Paul’s Xcel Energy Center to the rafters, they still party like it’s high school hockey of the ‘50s and ‘60s. “Minnesota high school hockey has a great culture,” said Bruins coach Jim Montgomery , who spent years trying to import Minnesota kids to his NCAA (RPI/Denver) and USHL (Dubuque) teams. “The talent level of players they develop is incredible for one state. For us, in Denver or in the USHL, I would draft players from Minnesota and it was hard to get them to come play junior hockey and leave high school hockey.” The Bruins this season have had proud Minnesota sons Cole Koepke (Hermantown) and Riley Tufte (Blaine) on their roster, both of whom signed as free agents in July. Headed into Saturday night’s tilt vs. the Maple Leafs, Koepke (3-3-6) was tied with David Pastrnak atop the club’s scoring chart. Langenbrunner, the Bruins’ assistant general manager, played three seasons for his hometown high school in Cloquet, Minn., before moving on to play two seasons for OHL Peterborough. He has fond memories of playing for Cloquet and understands the allure high school hockey has to this day for kids in his home state. “Minnesota’s always had community-based programs, right from an early age,” noted Langenbrunner, “and it continues right through high school. For some guys, there’s more of a pull now for the USHL and even the NAHL, but all in all, they’ve done a strong job of keeping their players in-house. I truly believe it’s really helped not only for pros but also on the college level. You see a huge number of college players from Minnesota and it’s because they have time to develop.” There is “some pride in playing for your town,” added Langenbrunner, who was 20 when he became a full-time NHLer with Dallas. “You know, you have your high school games and most of them are sold out,” he said. “You’re challenging kids to go play in a state tournament where you play in front of 18,000-19,000 people and it’s all on TV, it’s a pretty special opportunity. And you’re playing with kids you’ve grown up playing with or against since you were 5 or 6 years old — you’ve been on teams together, played hundreds of games together, traveled, and the culmination of that is being able to play for your high school team.” Tufte, who was placed on waivers Friday afternoon, made it to the state tournament at Xcel only once during his four years playing for Blaine High. “As a kid, you live and breathe hockey there,” said Tufte. “I grew up watching my hometown go to the state tournaments, my brother made it to four of them. Blaine was always a powerhouse. The way it worked, if our school was in the state tournament, the school basically shut down and everyone went to the games.” In many towns, particularly up north and across the Iron Range, explained Langenbrunner, it’s typical for high schools to have an indoor rink on campus. They also often have adjacent outdoor sheets, usually suitable for skating by the time Thanksgiving approaches. It’s a long season with a lot of available ice. “My high school had five outdoor sheets,” recalled Koepke, who, like Tufte, eventually played for the University of Minnesota Duluth. “We had the indoor rink, and the outdoor sheets were all back behind it. We’d practice out there, especially when we were younger, no joke, eight out of 10 times. All the time after school. Then when we got older and indoor practice was later in the day, we’d go out right after school and skate outdoors with each other for four or five hours.” That outdoor time, unregimented and unsupervised, is something kids rarely experience in the increasingly balmy Bay State. Climate change has changed our game. Outdoor ice allows kids time to experiment, hone their skills, think outside the standard set of coaching drills. “Huge, awesome,” said Koepke, musing over the value of those outdoor workouts, “because you’re on the ice and working on stuff, but you’re also having fun with your buddies. It keeps hockey fun.” Montgomery, rarely successful in enticing Minnesota kids to look beyond their hometown borders, said he believes the state’s overall family-centered culture plays a large part in keeping the high school game thriving. “Public education is also among the highest ranked [in the country],” added Montgomery. “It’s just a really good family state. It’s a family-centered culture that, if people leave the state, they come back.” “You’re playing competitive games in really good environments, and you can still stay at home,” added Langenbrunner, emphasizing his point with a chuckle. “And one other part that probably isn’t talked about enough is that it’s affordable. It doesn’t matter if you are a doctor’s kid or manager at McDonald’s, they can all afford to do it. To play high school hockey in Minnesota, it may cost you 200 bucks. It’s whatever they charge to play a high school sport.” His Cloquet High on-ice workouts, recalled Langenbrunner, lasted upward of three hours a day. Some 30-plus years later, costs have cut back the time a little, he said, but otherwise the high school game remains the same as it did when he was dreaming of the pros. “But still, the opportunity and the chance to play maybe more up the lineup than you would on a more stacked junior team,” mused Langenbrunner, “or a more stacked Triple A team, is there for the high school kid. The depth of these teams may not be as good, but the top-end players are still there.” And they just keep coming.
Bruins’ start disappointing
The Bruins entered the weekend with a milquetoast 3-4-1 record, by far the weakest of their three starts under coach Jim Montgomery . The eye test has been worse than the math. Going into Saturday night’s matchup with the Maple Leafs, the Bruins’ starts had been slow, their confidence fragile, their discipline lacking, and, most concerning, their in-game IQ regressed from Ivy League to bush league. The offense, particularly at five on five, has been painstakingly slow to evolve. The Bruins carried a worrisome minus-6 goal differential into the weekend. In the Atlantic Division, only Montreal (minus-10) was fighting the puck more. The Black and Gold’s best scoring punch through eight games came from their fourth-liners. Warning: When the grind guys are consistently outproducing the top six/nine, the coach’s message is clearly getting lost, or ignored. All of which explains Montgomery’s aggressive move in Utah, lighting into Brad Marchand on the bench for the captain’s egregious turnover (more later in this column). The move wasn’t designed so much to get in Marchand’s ear as it was the heads of the rest of the troops. They lost that night in overtime and then dropped the next two (Nashville, Dallas). Hello? Is anybody home? Over the last 25 years, the Bruins have failed to make the playoffs only six times, the last of which came in 2015-16. If they miss this season, following GM Don Sweeney’s biggest summer free agent spending spree in Black and Gold history, it will be their first DNQ in the post- Claude Julien era. And while eight games may represent a sample size a smidge less than 10 percent of the 82-game regular season, the Bruins’ 3-4-1 mark was about in lockstep with the flat starts that led to those six DNQs. ▪ 1999-2000 (coach: Pat Burns ) — Opened 0-5-3 and did not register first win until game No. 10. Finished with 24 wins and 73 points. ▪ 2000-01 (coach: Burns/ Mike Keenan ) — A 3-1 loss to Calgary on Oct. 20 left the Bruins 3-4-1 (sound familiar?) and left Burns out of a job. Keenan, who immediately declared the rank and file out of shape, was able to wring out only 30 wins the rest of the way, finishing with 88 points. Robbie Ftorek , the ex-Needham hero, was the new bench boss for October 2001. ▪ 2005-06 (coach: Mike Sullivan ) — A 3-5 start led in part to Joe Thornton getting traded to San Jose on Nov. 30. Dressed in teal, Jumbo Joe finished as the league MVP. The Bruins finished with 74 points, going 2-7-5 over the final 14 games. Mike O’Connell was dumped and new GM Peter Chiarelli cut Sullivan free in favor of Dave Lewis . ▪ 2006-07 (coach: Lewis) — A 2-5-1 start, leading to a season of 35 wins and 76 points, even with the input of new captain Zdeno Chara . They went a pre-Orr-like 1-10-1 over the final dozen games. Chiarelli canned Lewis early in the offseason and hired Julien, who was behind the bench for the Stanley Cup win in 2011. ▪ 2014-15 (coach: Julien) — Opened .500 (4-4-0) and fell short with a final mark of 96 points. Hope of a playoff berth ended with consecutive losses in Washington, Florida, and Tampa Bay in the final three games. ▪ 2015-16 (coach: Julien) — Slightly better start (4-3-1), but again fell short with 93 points. His squad scuffling along the next season with a 26-23-6 mark and a potential third consecutive DNQ, Julien was sacked. Bruce Cassidy sparked an 18-8-1 revival show and clinched a playoff berth with 95 points. In their two prior starts under Montgomery, the Bruins went a combined 14-1-1. The sizzling records each season had them all but locked into a playoff spot by the traditional Black Friday matinee. History warns that a sub-.500 mark before the Nov. 29 home game against the Penguins could be the sign of an early, disappointing spring. Sending a message a bit of a lost art
The Jim Montgomery - Brad Marchand in-game talking-to summoned memories of ex-Canadiens defenseman Tom Johnson , later the Bruins’ assistant GM, noting that the great Maurice Richard wasn’t beyond getting an earful from coach Toe Blake in the thick of play. Even during the unparalleled Montreal dynasty, Blake felt no one was beyond being reminded of, shall we say, the importance of details and execution. “He’d grab Rocket by the collar and let him have it, right there, for all of us to hear,” said Johnson. “We’d be thinking, ‘If he’s giving it to Rocket like that, what about us?’” Going after a club’s alpha dog for everyone to see once was a standard coaching device. It’s rarely seen in today’s NHL, largely because the stick carriers have been puffed and coddled since their days being identified as sure-shot NHLers by the ages of 10-12. Today, a cross-eyed look from the coach can lead to a player’s trade request. Thus, it was hard not to hear TJ’s musings of old come back to life when Marchand noted, “There’s a lack of accountability — people can’t handle the heat” when summing up today’s playing culture. Marchand rightly is confident enough in his own skill, record, and standing in the game to handle the criticism. He also has the experience and intelligence to know that Montgomery felt it necessary to pull the “break-glass-in-case-of-emergency” maneuver. The lingering issue really isn’t how Marchand processed what Montgomery did or whether he can handle the truth. It’s how his teammates failed to rally around the moment and that nothing changed over the next two-plus games. Loose pucks
Ex-Bruin Jake DeBrusk , who found his lucrative UFA payday (seven years x $5.5 million) with Vancouver on July 1, entered the weekend still in search of his first goal (0-4–4) with the Canucks. Meanwhile, fellow ex-Bostonian Danton Heinen had chipped in with 2-2–4 . . . RIP ex-Bruin short-timer Moe Lemay , who died Oct. 18 at age 62. Lemay provided some vital pop in the 1988 playoff series vs. Montreal that saw the Bruins finally snap a losing streak to the Habs that spanned 45 playoff seasons. A CBC story noted Lemay’s friends in recent years worried about his mental health and possible substance abuse. The plucky Lemay played 10 seasons in Europe after his NHL days. His longtime pal Mark Gallant lamented to CBC that Lemay’s post-career “never fell into place.” . . . Leo-Guy Morrissette , longtime owner/GM of the Acadie-Bathurst Titan in the Quebec League, died at age 79 on Oct. 14. The New Brunswick-based franchise is where Patrice Bergeron spent his junior season prior to the Bruins making him the 45th pick in the 2003 draft. Morrissette brought the franchise there in 1998 from Laval, Quebec, and it’s remained in operation, despite doing business in the smallest market of the three CHL junior leagues . . . As the weekend approached, the Devils eagerly welcomed injured defensemen Brett Pesce and Luke Hughes back into the lineup. Pesce, signed as a free agent in July, required offseason surgery on a fractured fibula. He made his Devils debut Thursday night. Hughes, hurt in preseason dryland training, made his season debut in the same game vs. the Red Wings. The Devils were tied for the Metropolitan lead on Friday, helped by the fill-in duty along the blue line by Seamus Casey , ex- of Michigan, and Johnathan Kovacevic , who turned pro in 2019 after three seasons at Merrimack . . . Ex-Bruins PR executive Nate Greenberg , confirming Johnson’s tale about Blake and Richard: “Heard it many times. And TJ would always add, ‘Of course, [Blake] never had to get on my ass.’ “ Johnson and Red Fisher , the legendary Montreal Gazette scribe, were decades-long pals, Fisher referring to TJ as “Tomcat” and Johnson addressing Fisher as “Saulie.” Fisher immensely enjoyed it when a Boston reporter, who will remain unnamed here, took to referring to his old pal as “Sir Lunchalot.” If they’re in one another’s company now, be assured Tomcat is drawing on a stogie and Saulie is sipping his Chivas.
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