Bruins
“We talked about getting back to an identity that we wanted to get back to. It’s about the process.”
The Bruins’ forward corps has been put in a blender so far this season.
Be it Jim Montgomery’s propensity for reshuffling his lines or Boston’s inability to generate offensive traction, the Bruins have found little chemistry in their personnel up front this fall.
Through 28 games, the Bruins have already featured a whopping 22 different forward lines that have logged at least 10 minutes of ice time this season. Of those 22, only one trio has recorded over 125 minutes together — a fourth-line grouping of Mark Kastelic, Johnny Beecher, and Cole Koepke.
Since taking the helm of the Bruins last month, Joe Sacco has usually opted to let Boston’s lines marinate a bit more in hopes of building some rapport among an underachieving crop of skaters.
But Boston’s interim head coach has opted to get a bit more creative in recent days. The results have helped Boston secure its first three-game win streak of the season.
While Sacco’s influence behind the bench has seen Boston shift back to the simplified, shot-first approach that should benefit the personnel currently on the Bruins’ roster, the Medford native seemingly made all of the right moves with his roster during Wednesday’s 4-2 win over the Blackhawks.
“I just try in small increments,” Sacco said Wednesday of righting the ship in Boston. “We try as a staff to help the team get better every day. We talked about getting back to an identity that we wanted to get back to. It’s about the process. I know it’s cliché, but it really is.”
After a sluggish start during Wednesday’s matchup in Chicago, Sacco opted to reshuffle his top-six unit, frontloading Boston’s top line with David Pastrnak, Elias Lindholm, and Brad Marchand.
Stapling Lindholm next to a scoring juggernaut like Pastrnak felt like one of the few easy lineup calls for the Bruins entering the 2024-25 campaign. But Montgomery opted to split up Lindholm and Pastrnak at the end of October after underwhelming returns.
At the time, the Bruins had only scored two goals (and surrendered two goals) during the 95:52 of 5-on-5 reps that Pastrnak and Lindholm recorded together.
But on Wednesday, the Marchand-Lindholm-Pastrnak line feasted against Chicago — with Marchand lighting the lamp twice in the span of 2:05 in the second period.
The first goal came after an offensive-zone faceoff win from Lindholm, jumpstarting a set play that ended with Pastrnak feeding Marchand for a one-timer blast.
On their subsequent shift, Pastrnak’s drive into the slot and resulting shot on goal generated a rebound that Marchand knocked home for his 10th tally of the season.
A porous Chicago defense may not be the litmus test teams should gauge when it comes to assessing their offensive ceiling.
But keeping the Marchand-Lindholm-Pastrnak line intact moving forward has plenty of appeal, especially if it continues to keep both Lindholm and Pastrnak engaged with a playmaker in Marchand who is starting to heat up (five goals, seven points in eight games).
With Pastrnak bumped up to a line with Marchand and Lindholm, Sacco rolled with an overhauled “second” line featuring Morgan Geekie, Pavel Zacha, and Justin Brazeau.
Both Geekie and Zacha — much like the rest of Boston’s forwards — have gone through some tough sledding in 2024-25.
But after logging just five minutes of ice time together entering Wednesday night, the Geekie-Zacha-Brazeau trio outscored Chicago, 2-0, and generated a 5-0 edge in shots on goal in just 4:31 of 5-on-5 reps on Wednesday.
Geekie’s first goal came at 12:17 in the first period in the midst of a line change. As Brazeau corralled a puck behind Chicago’s net, he fed the puck to a charging Geekie — fresh off the bench — who buried his second-chance bid for his third goal of the year.
Sacco opted to keep that group together moving forward, with Brazeau setting up Geekie for a breakaway look (and his second goal of the night) at 5:02 in the third period.
The Bruins still have a ways to go when it comes to regaining its scoring punch, especially on the power play. But at 5-on-5 play, the Bruins have at least started to find a bit more cohesion with their lineup.
Sacco’s decision to bump Mark Kastelic up to a third line with Charlie Coyle and Trent Frederic has injected a bit more pace and physicality into an area of the depth chart that has been too quiet this year. And even if they haven’t scored, a fourth-line grouping of Marc McLaughlin, Beecher, and Koepke have tilted the ice in Boston’s favor whenever they’ve been out on a shift.
Despite earning a majority of their reps against Connor Bedard’s line, Boston’s checking unit held a 3-1 edge in shots on goal and gave up zero tallies in their 7:54 of 5-on-5 reps on Wednesday.
Questions will remain about just how much skill and scoring touch there realistically is on this Bruins roster, as well as how much stock should be put into performances against cellar-dwellers like Chicago.
But so far, Sacco seems to be pushing all the right buttons to get more out of this group.
That in itself feels like a win at this stage of the season.
“We’re getting there,” Sacco said. “There’s still spurts and moments during the game. It’s never going to be perfect. We all know that. There’s moments and spurts during the game where I think we can do things a little bit better. Manage the game. Overall, I really like the direction we’re going.”
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