{"id":237798,"date":"2025-10-20T04:40:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T04:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/237798\/"},"modified":"2025-10-20T04:40:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T04:40:10","slug":"sturm-tries-to-get-point-across","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/237798\/","title":{"rendered":"Sturm tries to get point across"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThey just didn\u2019t play good (sic) enough. That was the only reason,\u201d said Sturm before Sunday night\u2019s 3-2 loss to the Mammoth<\/a>. \u201cOur best players have to be best, and I thought [Saturday] they weren\u2019t. Our fourth line killed a lot of penalties, did all the work \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Sturm added with his characteristic frankness, \u201cWe need the big guys to step up.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, tough game for us, flip the page and focus for today,\u201d said Pastrnak. \u201cYeah, it was tough, obviously \u2026 we all saw it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe knew it wasn\u2019t good enough,\u201d said Zacha, referring to his efforts in Denver. \u201cThe last two games weren\u2019t good enough. We took a little step today toward being more effective, but there\u2019s a lot of room for improvement, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pastrnak, one of the league\u2019s elite goal scorers and the club\u2019s top-paid performer, was back in the lineup Sunday night, along with Zacha, his fellow Czech. Sturm said he held blunt conversations with them during the day, in order to explain his decision-making process and let each know what he wants and expects out of them.<\/p>\n

Clearly, Sturm figures a coddle-free approach is best, which is both rare and risky in today\u2019s treat-the-working-help-with-velvet-gloves approach by most NHL coaches. He made the moves in hopes of lighting some fire in the belly of both forwards. <\/p>\n

The inherent risk attached is that player ego plummets and performance remains flat or declines. Sturm essentially is setting a standard for both players, along with the rest of the roster. If you want to be in, then show it. If not, he\u2019s not waiting around for the spirit to move you while points are being frittered away in the standings. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe had some good conversations today,\u201d Sturm said. \u201cThey know it and I give them my little sentence and what I want to see is a response today. We\u2019re better than that. Yeah, it\u2019s a working process \u2014 a lot of moving pieces, new coach, new system, I get all that \u2014 but we just have to find a way to get a buy-in as quick as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is \u201calways a tough conversation,\u201d when delivering what the coach views as the truth about poor or insufficient play.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one wants to be scratched, right?\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s always hard. But I look at this year\u2019s schedule \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Casey Mittelstadt was the one to be dealt Sturm\u2019s stern hand here, the ex-Avalanche center told to take the night off. Marat Khusnutdinov filled his spot in the forward mix.<\/p>\n

\u201cCasey will not be the only guy that\u2019s going to get scratched,\u201d added Sturm. \u201cThere\u2019s going to be a lot of other guys, too. I just want us to be fresh every time. We need everyone on board, we really do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hampus Lindholm<\/a>, who returned to the Bruins backline in Denver after a three-game absence because of injury, was held out of the lineup. Sturm said the veteran defenseman showed no ill effects from his return (20:44 time on ice) on Saturday, but the club felt it was prudent not to play him in back-to-back games, with under 24 hours to recover.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just want to be careful,\u201d said Sturm, noting his plan going into Saturday\u2019s game was that Lindholm likely would sit out Sunday. \u201cBack-to-back games, after his injury, we just want to be careful.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Lindholm getting a rest, ex-Northeastern defenseman Jordan Harris<\/a> returned to the blueline corps.<\/p>\n

Kevin Paul Dupont can be reached at kevin.dupont@globe.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThey just didn\u2019t play good (sic) enough. That was the only reason,\u201d said Sturm before Sunday night\u2019s 3-2…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":237799,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[19859,385,99],"class_list":["post-237798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-bruins","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237798\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/237799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}