OK, so where do the Bruins go from here?

Coach Jim Montgomery was asked that question in his rubble-sifting presser after Boston’s latest disaster, a 5-1 loss to the Blue Jackets, and he answered the only way he or any other coach could answer. Look at the film. Keep demanding the players get to the level that’s expected. Yada, yada yada.

That’s not to dismiss the hours that Montgomery and his staff put in every day. It’s tireless and, right now, thankless work.

But the ball is really in GM Don Sweeney’s court. We are 20 games into the season and, despite pre-season expectations, the team he assembled is a bad one. They are bad on offense (ranked 31st in a 32-team league), bad on defense (28th) and awful on special teams (32nd on the power play, 25th on the penalty kill).

You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who has even met, never mind exceeded expectations. You might be able to put backup goalie Joonas Korpisalo and fourth-line center Mark Kastelic in that category. That’s it. And that’s not good enough.

The ball has rolled so far down the hill that quick fixes won’t work. Montgomery yelling at Brad Marchand hasn’t done it. Neither has benching David Pastrnak. Same for scratching depth players.

Management tried the desperation move of bringing up veteran energy player Jeff Viel from Providence for Monday’s game and he did everything you could ask of him. He picked a fight with one of the league’s toughest guys, drew a couple of penalties and led the team in hits. A team that’s close to succeeding would have responded, but the B’s might as well have had a Do Not Resuscitate order on their chart.

After the game, Marchand acknowledged that the ball has rolled so far down the hill on the B’s that it won’t be easy to push it back up, though he did try to strike a hopeful tone.

“It’s going to take a long time and it’s going to be really hard,” said the captain. “But that’s what makes these things really worthwhile and so enjoyable at the end of the day, when you see yourself get to the point where you want to be at and you understand how hard you work to get there, there’s no better feeling.”

But it’s anyone’s guess who’ll be alongside Marchand when and if they get back to the top of the hill.

The easy fall guy is and always has been the coach in this league. And you do have to wonder if the coach’s vision for the team is divergent from the management’s. After the B’s were bounced from the playoffs by the Florida Panthers, Montgomery lamented that “you can’t win every game 2-1.”

But when Sweeney reshaped the roster in the offseason – and this time with plenty of salary cap space – he doubled down on the defensive aspect of the game and said “sometimes you have to win 2-1.”

The problem is, the two big ticket items that Sweeney spent heavily on haven’t been anywhere near what was expected. We knew from the start that two-way center Elias Lindholm (seven x $7.75 million) was not Patrice Bergeron and that big defensemen Nikita Zadorov (six x $5 million) was not Zdeno Chara. Fine. But they’ve yet to live up to even their own identities.

On Sunday, Lindholm acknowledged that he was falling far short of his own standard. Good on him. That recognition, however, hasn’t changed the fact that he hasn’t scored a goal since Game 3 of the season and doesn’t have a point in his last five games. Lindholm was not only supposed to be a defensively responsible center, but he was also expected to mitigate the loss of some offense that went out the door with Jake DeBrusk.

With Zadorov, there is plenty of want-to in his game. He delivers punishing checks and drops the gloves when its called for. But he hasn’t killed enough plays in his own end, at times he seems disconnected from his forwards on breakouts and he still leads the league in minor penalties with 13 (though Charlie McAvoy is right behind at 12.)

Is there time for them to turn it around? Sure. But it could take a while. In the summer of 2021, Sweeney went out and signed Linus Ullmark, Nick Foligno, Tomas Nosek and Derek Forbort. There wasn’t great bang for the buck the first year, but the next season they all played roles to varying degrees of significance in a record-breaking 65-win season, with Ullmark winning the Vezina.

But if this is all there is with Lindholm and Zadorov then, boy, that’s going to be tough to swallow for the guy that signed them. Neither is going anywhere. According to puckpedia.com, Lindholm has a full no-move clause for the first five years of his deal and Zadorov has a no-move this year and no-trade next year.

Sweeney would also have to manage partial no-trade clauses for mid-level veterans such as Charlie Coyle, Pavel Zacha or Brandon Carlo if he was pursuing a “shake it up” trade. Perhaps the most marketable trade chip right now is UFA-to-be Trent Frederic. While Frederic could land some good futures, it’s hard to see a return that would greatly change this team’s fortunes. And with the B’s close to the cap, they have money in-money-out constraints.

Yes, this is fine mess the B’s find themselves in, and there’s no easy way out.