Get ready for the biggest Bruins line shakeup yet in Carolina
The Boston Bruins lines have been thrown in the proverbial blender many times already in the 2024-25 season. During games, between games. Whenever head coach Jim Montgomery has felt inspired to do so, really.
Thursday night in Carolina will bring the biggest shakeup yet.
Montgomery and the Bruins revealed some radical new forward lines during Wednesday’s practice in Raleigh, ahead of a tough matchup against the Carolina Hurricanes. Most notable is that Montgomery for the first time is breaking up the forward pair of Elias Lindholm and David Pastrnak, which the team clearly hoped would click offensively. That simply has not materialized.
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Also notable is that Montgomery has completely broken up the fourth line, which has been the team’s most consistently productive and effective trio. Johnny Beecher, Mark Kastelic, and Cole Koepke are now on a line each, in hopes that the disparate pieces will sprinkle a little inspiration throughout the group.
Right now, we’re just looking for players to take ownership of their game,” Montgomery said Thursday. “What we also want is that we’re splitting up that Kastelic, Beecher and Koepke line, as we want their work habits to kind of rub off on their linemates.”
Here’s a look at the forward lines to expect for the Bruins in Thursday night’s game against the Hurricanes at Lenovo Center (credit to Conor Ryan at Boston.com for the reporting):
Johnny Beecher – Pavel Zacha – David Pastrnak
Brad Marchand – Elias Lindholm – Mark Kastelic
Trent Frederic – Matthew Poitras – Justin Brazeau
Max Jones – Charlie Coyle – Cole Koepke
Elias Lindholm has cooled off since starting hot with five points in his first three games as a Bruin. He has zero points with a minus-7 rating in seven games since then. As the Bruins’ biggest off-season acquisition, he needs to get going as much as anyone in the lineup, and ostensibly, the hope is that this demotion jump-starts him back to the player we saw in the first week of the season.
“Obviously we haven’t played as well as we want to,” Lindholm said. “It’s been pretty clear, and the results we’re getting, I think we all want to be better. It’ll be a good test for us, playing a good team in Carolina. I think we’re all excited to get going here and have a good matchup.”
Coyle would qualify as the biggest demotion of the bunch. Projected as the No. 2 center entering training camp and the regular season, Coyle has just one goal with no assists in 10 games, despite averaging 17:15 of ice time. Despite the possession game typically being Coyle’s strength, the Bruins have a shot attempt rate of just 48% with him on the ice at 5-on-5, which ranks 277th in the league among all players with at least 100 minutes in that situation.
Coyle shouldn’t be singled out, though. Even Pastrnak is on pace for “only” 49 goals and 16 assists, which by his standard would be an appreciable regression. The lack of production from the Bruins’ top guys has to be considered the main reason for their offensive struggles over the first 10 games, because if they were playing to their potential, we’d be worrying more about the secondary scoring like we always do.
Montgomery is sure hoping this latest shakeup, his boldest creation to date, gets the Bruins the spark they need. Because if they can’t get out of this slump, fair or not, it’s likely the coach who would be in face the consequences for it.
Matt Dolloff is a writer and digital content producer for 98.5 The Sports Hub. Read all of his articles here.
Bruins can't break through shot-blocking Flyers in latest offensive slog
Poitras’ Eventful Night
Oct 29, 2024; Boston, Massachusetts, USA; Boston Bruins center Matthew Poitras (51) fights Philadelphia Flyers defenseman Emil Andrae (36) during the third period at TD Garden. Mandatory Credit: Brian Fluharty-Imagn Images
Bruins forward Matthew Poitras had about as interesting a game as you can expect for a kid who was a minus-1 with no shots on goal. He took a hard open-ice hit from the Flyers’ Joel Farabee in the first period, a clear interference penalty that wasn’t called, but didn’t have to exit the game despite being clearly shaken up.
Later, in the third period, Poitras got into some theatrics with the Flyers’ Emil Andrae. Poitras engaged with Andrae and toppled him to the ice, which is a fairly standard play when two guys are jousting along the boards. But what was out of the ordinary was Andrae throwing a gloved punch right in Poitras’ face. Poitras responded by continuing to shove and hold Andrae down on the ice, and both eventually went to the box for matching roughing penalties.
“I was just trying to battle for the puck and we both grabbed each other, a little skirmish trying to play the puck, and obviously I didn’t like the sucker punch,” Poitras said after the game.
Ultimately, the Bruins are better off with the 20-year-old Poitras on the ice rather than off it, and not getting punched or being drawn into unnecessary physical battles. But it was nice for the B’s to see Poitras’ competitive fire come out in that moment.
Power Play Woes Continue
Oct 29, 2024; Boston, Massachusetts, USA; Boston Bruins center Charlie Coyle (13) skates with the puck against Philadelphia Flyers defenseman Travis Sanheim (6) during the first period at TD Garden. (Brian Fluharty-Imagn Images)
On the aforementioned power play … the Bruins made five total shot attempts in four power plays, and none of them actually made it on goal (via Natural Stat Trick). They were out-shot 1-0 on the power play. Can’t have it!
Their problems on the man advantage are an extension and an amplification of their overall offensive struggles. It’s obvious at this point that they need to change their approach, because the talent on the roster isn’t going to change much,.
“PKs are good now, so, they do a good job too,” said Brad Marchand. “But, we might need to try to throw some different looks at teams and try some different things. But, we’ll look at that tomorrow.”
