Bruins coach Jim Montgomery says he wasn’t planning to change up his lines so early in the season. And with his team off to a 2-0-0 start, it would be more than understandable if he gave his initial combinations a longer leash.
Skate Pod Mailbag: Does Poitras change Bruins' planning for future?
But as he watched Saturday night’s 3-2 win over the Nashville Predators, Boston’s bench boss couldn’t help but feel like his team was leaving some 5-on-5 offense on the table. Some video study Monday morning confirmed his suspicions. So, when the Bruins hit the ice for Monday’s practice at Warrior Ice Arena, the forwards lined up like this:
Jake DeBrusk – Pavel Zacha – David Pastrnak
Brad Marchand – Matt Poitras – Morgan Geekie
James van Riemsdyk – Charlie Coyle – Trent Frederic
Milan Lucic – Johnny Beecher – Jakub Lauko
The only thing that remained the same from the first two games was the fourth line. Pastrnak and Zacha see their left wing swapped from van Riemsdyk to DeBrusk. The 19-year-old Poitras moves into a more offensive spot next to Marchand, while still keeping Geekie on his right. Coyle reunites with longtime linemate Frederic and gets a different scoring threat on his left in van Riemsdyk.
“It's a small sample size, two games,” Montgomery acknowledged. “We’re going on the road. That factors into it a little bit on why. But I haven't seen a lot of offensive 5-on-5 generation. Again, small sample size. I just think -- I trust my eye behind the bench, and then follow it up and I see it on video, I just want to try something else to get a spark.”
The Bruins haven’t been a bad 5-on-5 team through two games by any means. Their 59.2% Corsi (percentage of shot attempts) ranks fifth in the NHL in the early going, and their 76.5 shot attempts per 60 minutes are second only to the Colorado Avalanche.
But they have been slow to translate that possession and attempts into goals, scoring just two at 5-on-5 play so far. Another issue is that while the Marchand-Coyle-DeBrusk line was doing a good job shutting down opponents’ top lines, they were spending a little too much time and energy defending and weren’t getting a ton of chances at the other end. Given that Marchand and DeBrusk are two of their most talented offensive players, that’s not ideal.
Now, Montgomery could potentially use van Riemsdyk-Coyle-Frederic as a shutdown line – a role Coyle and Frederic played together effectively much of last season – and Marchand and DeBrusk could both be freed up a little more offensively.
“They’re both good defensively,” Montgomery said of Coyle and Frederic. “So, if I want to, I can match them up against another team's best offensive line. But most importantly, the O-zone time, they play well together. And I think a guy like van Riemsdyk really helps them connect the dots there because he likes that net-front. Charlie likes to possess it and Freddy really does a good job getting open as F3 and shoot.”
In a third-line role, Poitras has continued to showcase the playmaking and creativity he flashed in the preseason, and has been one of the Bruins’ most effective 5-on-5 forwards as a result. The B’s have generated more shot attempts (104.3) and high-danger chances (23.5) per 60 minutes with Poitras on the ice than with any other player. Now he gets an elite winger in Marchand who can help convert more of those chances into goals.
“He's generated a lot of offense already,” Montgomery said of Poitras. “And obviously you give him a real elite player like Marchy on his line, and I’ve really liked Geekie’s game. Just want to see if there's chemistry there offensively.
“And on the other line, putting JD [DeBrusk] with the other two [Zacha and Pastrnak] I think gives us a real good rush line, has a lot of speed and a lot of creativity to it. Again, is it gonna work? Who knows?”
The big test for Poitras will be that he is now likely to see tougher matchups playing on a line with Marchand than he did playing on the third line. That’s a test the Bruins would seemingly want to put Poitras through before the end of his nine-game extended tryout anyways, although Montgomery says that wasn’t really the impetus for all these changes.
“I actually didn't have that in the back of my mind to try that,” he said. “It makes sense, your question, but I actually was wanting to give it more time the way the lines were set so that I can do a favorable matchup. I don’t think Poitras is gonna get a favorable matchup with Marchand on this line, but if you're gonna play in the NHL, you have to play against everybody.”
The Bruins are currently in the middle of a four-day gap between games before they begin a four-game road trip Thursday in San Jose. They are expected to fly out to the West Coast on Tuesday.