Pastrnak isn't worried about his quiet series
Jim Montgomery started Game 5 with his top three lines featuring completely new combinations, including Patrice Bergeron and Brad Marchand being split up for the first time in years. They lasted just half a period before he switched back to some more familiar threesomes amid a slow start to the game.
The Bruins coach isn't planning to use the blender again. After Friday's morning skate ahead of Game 6 (7:30 p.m. on NESN and TNT), Montgomery said his lines will have players back in their "comfort zones."
Exactly what those lines will be is still a little bit up in the air, though, because David Krejci's status is still up in the air. The veteran center traveled with the team to Florida after missing the last three games with an upper-body injury and was on the ice for morning skate in a yellow jersey, which presumably meant no-contact.
Krejci and Montgomery told reporters in Sunrise that he will skate in warmups before the game and a final decision will be made after that.
Montgomery also told reporters that Linus Ullmark, who was not on the ice Friday morning, will start a sixth straight game in net. Connor Clifton will go in for Matt Grzelcyk on defense, and Trent Frederic is expected to return up front after being a healthy scratch in Game 5, especially if Krejci is out.
If Krejci remains out, this is the lineup we would expect to see for Game 6:
Brad Marchand - Patrice Bergeron - Jake DeBrusk
Tyler Bertuzzi - Pavel Zacha - David Pastrnak
Taylor Hall - Charlie Coyle - Trent Frederic
Nick Foligno - Tomas Nosek - Garnet Hathaway
Dmitry Orlov - Charlie McAvoy
Hampus Lindholm - Brandon Carlo
Derek Forbort - Connor Clifton
Linus Ullmark
Jeremy Swayman
If Krejci does play, it would be interesting to see how that affects the lineup. Would Montgomery reunite the Czech line of Zacha-Krejci-Pastrnak, or would he have something else in mind? A Czech reunion would bump Bertuzzi down, possibly to a third line of Hall-Coyle-Bertuzzi that many have speculated about but that we've only seen together for one practice and zero games.
(UPDATE: Krejci is in for Game 6, the Czech line is reunited, Hall-Coyle-Bertuzzi is the third line, and Frederic is once again a healthy scratch.)
On defense, swapping Clifton in for Grzelcyk is an interesting move. The Forbort-Clifton pairing struggled at 5-on-5 play in Games 1 and 2, with the Bruins getting outshot 14-7 and having an expected goals share of just 32.9% when they were on the ice.
The insertion of Grzelcyk for Game 3 helped the Bruins' breakout and transition game, but his ice time has been pretty low (12:52 per game) and Orlov-McAvoy (55.0% Corsi, 56.8% expected goals) has been a better pairing than Grzelcyk-McAvoy (43.5% Corsi, 38.0% expected goals) in this series.
Given that, putting Orlov and McAvoy together is understandable. Montgomery could try a third pairing of Grzelcyk with either Forbort or Clifton, but circling back to the idea of "comfort zones," Forbort-Clifton is a more comfortable third pairing given how much they've played together this season.
Forbort continues to bring value on the penalty kill, which is 11-for-13 (84.6%) in the series. Clifton's physical presence could give the Bruins a spark, too. Boston will need them to be better together at 5-on-5 than they were in the first two games of the series, though.
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