On Saturday, Bruins coach Jim Montgomery showed some tough love to rookie Matt Poitras when he sat him for the third period while the B’s eked out a 5-3 win over the Arizona Coyotes.

On Monday, it was time for Montgomery to give the kid figurative hug.

“Him and I had a great meeting today,” said Montgomery. “He’s a 19-year-old kid who’s doing really good things to help the Bruins be (18-5-3). There are going to be struggles. There are struggles for everybody. Even (David Pastrnak) has struggles, despite the fact that he’s what, third in scoring? We tried to impress upon him how much we believe in him and how much he has to continue to grow. And those two things are intertwined in his career-long path of success as a Bruin.”

Poitras has 5-7-12 totals in 25 games, and had a big helper in the second period that led to Danton Heinen’s goal that held up as the game-winner. But earlier in the game he had a turnover that led t a goal against. When it came time to protect the lead in the third period, Montgomery elected to shorten his bench and Poitras was a spectator.

It’s all part of the ongoing education of a young player. Montgomery said Poitras was receptive to what he was saying in their meeting.

“He’s a terrific young man,” said Montgomery. “He comes into the meeting and I think he could walk in under the crack in the door into my office and he comes out and he can walk through (the door). That’s what you want. You want to have an open and honest conversation about why things are transpiring like they do and what he needs to focus on. I gave him two things to focus on, to really allow him to have success. And if I go down to three lines, be part of the three lines.”

One of the things that Montgomery talked to Poitras was having short shift lengths so that he can stay at his peak.

“You think you have juice left, but one shift bleeds into another long shift and then you you don’t have energy for the rest of the game,” said Poitras, who played less than nine minutes on Saturday.

While the bump in the road has not come as a surprise to Poitras, in no way has it shaken his belief in himself.

“Yeah, it’s a tough league. There’s no easy nights,” said Poitras. “I’m still confident in my ability and I’m going to keep trying to do my thing. Every game there’s going to be some adversity, but I still feel confident.”

He’s hardly the first young player to go through struggles. Jake DeBrusk had his share of benchings under former coach Bruce Cassidy and can certainly give Poitras plenty of advice on how to deal with it.

“He’s done a good job. He’s said all the right things,” said DeBrusk. “He’s a competitor. It’s one of those things where…in the first year, you have that pressure inside to produce and stay, honestly. And you still have that seven or six years later. But it’s a little different when you’re an offensive guy, you’re young and you haven’t really molded your game completely to where it is when you’re a veteran. I think the biggest advice to him is just keep doing what you’re doing. It’s a really hard league to have confidence and it’s easy for it to get shot. Don’t look at the outside noise. I told him if he does, just look up my name and you’ll feel a lot better about yourself.”…

Last week when the B’s had three days off, the B’s had a bad practice the day before Thursday’s game against Buffalo and proceeded to play like that in the game. When Montgomery wasn’t thrilled about the way Monday’s practice at Warrior Ice Arena was going, it’s little surprise that he stopped it and gathered the team to get their attention.

“I asked them if they thought practice was good enough and (Pastrnak) said no right away,” said Montgomery.

“I’m very mindful (about what happened last week), but more importantly mindful of the standard we’re trying to keep here and the culture of demanding excellence. We’re not going to be perfect, but we can demand excellence. We can demand excellence in effort and execution…We see it all over the league. The Rangers lose two a little while ago, we went through it three games in a row. Dallas. The teams that started off really good have all had five games segments where they wouldn’t like it. Now Vegas has gotten out of it and they’re playing great. We need to get out of it. And our effort and our execution is what’s going to lead us out of it.

“And the last thing I would say is energy. We need more energy. That’s something I actually talked to Poitras about. I said ‘You have a very infectious smile. When you smile, I feel better.’ And I said ‘Imagine your teammates.’ You know you’re 19 and in the NHL, right? Someone like Brad Marchand’s been in here for 15 years. He might think going to New Jersey is just another game. For you, it’s the first time you’re going to New Jersey! That brings the energy that we need.”

Montgomery said he felt the team picked it up after the impromptu meeting on the ice, pointing to Matt Grzelcyk and Hampus Lindholm as raising the level of performance…..

Pavel Zacha, who left Saturday’s game with an upper body injury, did not practice. Montgomery termed him as day-to-day. The same goes for Charlie McAvoy (upper body), who skated prior to practice.

“They’re progressing. They’re not at the stage where we can say yes or no yet for Wednesday,” said Montgomery.

Marchand skated prior to practice as well for what Montgomery termed a scheduled maintenance day….

The B’s announced the hiring of Adam Rogowin as the team’s new VP of Communications and Content. Rogowin, A Chicago-area native, Rogowin worked for the Blackhawks for 14 years, holding a similar position with them from 2017-22.