Tuesday night’s 3-1 win over the Penguins was a big one for the Bruins. They were coming off two straight losses and had just gotten shut out by Pittsburgh on Sunday.
The big guns certainly came to play. Boston’s top two lines dominated, scoring all three goals -- including highlight-reel efforts from David Krejci and Taylor Hall -- and shutting down the Penguins’ top line in head-to-head matchups.
According to Natural Stat Trick, in 24:55 with the Krejci and Patrice Bergeron lines on the ice at five-on-five, the Bruins led the Penguins 35-9 in shot attempts, 20-5 in shots on goal, 18-4 in scoring chances, and 7-1 in high-danger chances. Against the Sidney Crosby line, the Bruins’ top six went 19-5, 11-2, 13-4 and 5-0 in those same categories.
Tuukka Rask played very well in goal, bouncing back nicely after getting pulled in Friday night’s loss to the Sabres. He stopped 25 of the 26 shots he faced and made a few really nice saves, including a pair of blocker saves on point-blank chances from Bryan Rust and Jared McCann.
After the game, coach Bruce Cassidy said there was “a lot to like from everybody,” including a new-look bottom six that featured Trent Frederic re-entering the lineup for a scratched Jake DeBrusk, Charlie Coyle moving to the wing, and more in-game shuffling, with Frederic eventually moving up to the third line and Nick Ritchie down to the fourth.
“There’s a lot to like from everybody tonight, to be honest with you,” Cassidy said. “We played a good, determined game. … Obviously Krech was a big goal for us. We hadn’t scored in four and a half periods, whatever it was. And then Hall’s, it’s nice to extend your lead. Marchy [Brad Marchand] did for the second goal, and Hall for the third. Kudos to them. Our tops guys did the finishing tonight, and our bottom guys did a lot of the dirty work, the grunt work, the physicality. So it’s a good formula for us.”
“Good formula,” eh? Maybe.
In the most literal sense, sure. If your top two lines dominate like that and score three goals, and your other lines and your goaltender don’t give up goals, you’re going to win a lot of games. And having two lines capable of dominating like that is a significant improvement over recent seasons in which the Bruins didn’t have that second line.
But as good as the Bruins’ top two lines are, they won’t dominate like this every game. One or both will have off games, or at least games where they create chances but the puck doesn’t go in.
Looking at the opponent, Crosby’s line is too good to get dominated by both the Bergeron and Krejci lines for an entire playoff series. The Penguins will also have a much better second line when Evgeni Malkin returns, which could be any day now. The Capitals, another possible playoff opponent, have two very good lines as well.
When the Bruins get to those playoff games where part of the top six is off, or unlucky, or just canceled out by an opposing line that’s playing well, they’re still going to need a third line that can score.
And that’s where there are still questions about this “formula.” The Bruins’ third and fourth lines did bring some energy and physicality Tuesday night, but neither brought much offense. The bottom six forwards finished the game with six combined shots on goal and were credited with just one individual scoring chance by Natural Stat Trick.
That’s not to say there weren’t any encouraging signs. There were. Coyle and Kuraly, in particular, had a couple nice link-ups or near-link-ups that led to a couple chances. Frederic, playing his first game in three weeks after battling a non-COVID illness and then finding himself as the odd man out, had some first-game-back energy that was closer to what he brought earlier in the season than what he was bringing during a bit of a mid-season drop-off.
But it’s worth pointing out that in the 5:36 that Frederic, Kuraly and Coyle played together at five-on-five, the Bruins got out-attempted 7-1 and out-chanced 3-0. In fairness, they did start most of their shifts in the defensive zone -- that’s the “grunt work” Cassidy mentioned.
All that would be perfectly fine… from a fourth line. That’s fourth-line kind of work. And that’s the thing: the Bruins basically had two fourth lines Tuesday night, neither offering much offensive upside.
Could the Bruins be successful with two “grunt work” lines that handle a bunch of defensive-zone shifts and do so without getting scored on, freeing up the top two lines to feast in the offensive zone? Maybe. There's a chance that could be a “good formula.”
But it still feels like the Bruins are going to need a third line that can score some goals at some point, and they didn’t really get much closer to finding that Tuesday.