For Games 1 and 2 in Washington, Capitals coach Peter Laviolette was able to get the matchups he wanted against the Bruins thanks to having the last change that comes with home ice.
That changes Wednesday night with the series shifting to Boston for Game 3. Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy can now dictate the matchups. If there are any matchups from the first two games he wants to avoid, he can. If there any new ones he wants to try to exploit, he can do that too.
But how much Cassidy chooses to target specific matchups will be interesting to watch. He generally does not chase matchups as much as a lot of other coaches, including Laviolette, even on home ice. He explained why on Tuesday.
“I just think we’ve coached our team like, hey, stuff is going to happen through the course of a game, through the course of the year. You’ve got to be prepared to play against anybody on a given night,” Cassidy said. “Right away that’s a system, structure thing that every player has to get down. And then second of all, they have to be prepared that their matchup might change.
“As I’ve said before, I just don’t feel the rhythm of your team is good if guys are constantly coming off and on the ice. Of course we look at matchups and want to get certain things going into a game, but I’ve said I don’t love to chase them for that reason. It takes guys out of their game. You have some high-end players that could end up sitting. You want them on the ice if they’re difference-makers.”
That’s why you rarely see the Bruins make quick changes during the run of play. They’re not going to change a line off 10 seconds after a faceoff just because they prefer another line a little more in a certain matchup. That said, the Bruins still can and do look for certain matchups before faceoffs, especially if it’s getting one of their top two lines out for an offensive-zone draw against a vulnerable line or pairing that’s gotten stuck out after an icing.
The one matchup the Bruins may have tried to get away from at home is one they might get away from due to injury anyways. Laviolette used his line of Conor Sheary, Lars Eller and Michael Raffl as his big matchup line against the Bruins’ top line of Brad Marchand, Patrice Bergeron and David Pastrnak, and that Caps trio mostly held their own.
But then Eller, the center and most important part of that line, suffered an injury midway through the second period Monday night and did not return to the game. He appeared to be favoring his left leg, and it’s unclear if he’ll be able to play in Game 3. Laviolette, notorious for his secrecy around injuries, said on Tuesday that Eller is “day-to-day.”
If Eller is out, that would leave the Carl Hagelin-Nic Dowd-Garnet Hathaway line as the only shutdown-type line Laviolette would really be comfortable using for defensive-zone shifts against the Bruins’ top two lines.
That trio has played well, with Hathaway scoring twice in Game 2 and Dowd scoring the game-winner in Game 1, but Laviolette can’t realistically use them for every shift against both the Bergeron line and the Taylor Hall-David Krejci-Craig Smith line.
The only other line Laviolette has used against either of the Bruins’ top two lines with any sort of regularity is his top line of Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom and Anthony Mantha against the Krejci line, but the Krejci line had a 4-0 advantage in high-danger chances in that matchup on Monday, so Cassidy may not be any rush to avoid it Wednesday.
Speaking of the Ovechkin line, Laviolette clearly made a concerted effort to get them out against the Bruins’ third defense pairing as much as possible. In Game 1, they pinned Jeremy Lauzon and Kevan Miller in their own zone pretty consistently and scored a goal against them (well, defenseman Brenden Dillon scored the goal, but they were on the ice).
But in Game 2, with Connor Clifton replacing an injured Lauzon in the lineup, that line didn’t have nearly as much success. Clifton, a better skater and more agile under pressure than Lauzon, was the defenseman they faced the most, but the Bruins actually had a 10-8 edge in shot attempts when both Clifton and Ovechkin were on the ice, despite the fact that most of those head-to-head meetings were starting in the Bruins’ zone.
Cassidy may free his third pairing, which will be Clifton and Miller for Game 3, from that matchup a little bit, but again, he’s probably not going to run from it. Plus, the more he can rely on Clifton and Miller to handle defensive-zone shifts, the more it frees up Matt Grzelcyk and Charlie McAvoy for offensive situations. Obviously that could change if things start to go sideways for Clifton and Miller.
Similarly, it wouldn’t appear the Capitals have any defense pair Cassidy would want to keep his top lines away from. He may try to get them out against the third pairing of Zdeno Chara and Nick Jensen more -- especially for on-the-fly line changes -- as there’s a reason Laviolette sheltered those two and kept them away from the Bergeron and Krejci lines as much as possible in the first two games.
He obviously doesn’t trust them in those matchups, going so far as to give them just one defensive-zone faceoff in Game 2 and only four shifts in the third period. That meant more D-zone draws against the Bergeron line for the top pairing of Dmitry Orlov and John Carlson, a duo the Capitals generally would prefer to use in a more offensive role.
That’s a trade-off the Bruins should be just fine with. If Orlov and Carlson are spending more time in their own zone in tough defensive situations and less time in the Bruins’ zone contributing offensively, that’s a win for Boston. Through two games, the Bruins have a 29-18 advantage in shot attempts (61.7% Corsi) in the 21 five-on-five minutes that the Bergeron line has been out against Carlson. Once again, that’s not a matchup Cassidy’s going to go out of his way to avoid, and one he might even continue to seek out.
So, in conclusion, having last change is nice. There may be some situations here and there when Cassidy uses it to target certain matchups. But the only one he may have actively tried to avoid would be the Bergeron line against the Eller line, and even that may now be a moot point if Eller is unable to play.
The Bruins should feel pretty good about how most of the matchups have gone through two games. It’s the Capitals who need to find some mismatches, and they’re going to have a harder time doing it on the road.
All matchup stats via Natural Stat Trick
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