Bruins coach Jim Montgomery would often shuffle his lines during the games to create a spark, and it worked in Wednesday's 3-1 win against the Chicago Blackhawks, but going forward he plans to make that an exception, not the rule.
BRIGHTON, Mass. – After mixing and matching his forward lines throughout the early parts of training camp, Boston Bruins coach Jim Montgomery locked in his preferred lineup for Wednesday’s season-opener, a 3-1 win against the Chicago Blackhawks, which went as follows:
Brad Marchand - Charlie Coyle - Jake DeBrusk
James van Riemsdyk - Pavel Zacha - David Pastrnak
Trent Frederic - Matt Poitras - Morgan Geekie
Milan Lucic - Johnny Beecher - Jakub Lauko
While spending most of the game with this combination, Montgomery decided to mix things up. He flipped Milan Lucic with James van Riemsdyk, moving the former up to the second line with David Pastrnak. He also wanted to see the 19-year-old Matt Poitras, who tallied an assist in his NHL debut, center a line with Brad Marchand.
Lucic, who played his first game with the Bruins since April 11, 2015 on Wednesday, often played on the same line as Pastrnak during that 2014-15 season, the only year those two spent as teammates before Lucic signed back in Boston on July 1.
The two re-sparked that connection immediately, with Lucic sending a backhanded pass off the rush to Pastrnak in the left circle to tee him up for the go-ahead goal at 13:09 of the second period.
“We had a couple shifts there together, and we’re able to connect on the goal there,” Lucic said after Wednesday’s game. “So yeah, it’s great to get the win, fun to contribute, and start the season off with a big one.”
Brought back to Boston in the twilight of his career, Lucic will largely maintain his fourth line role, but his ability to jump into the top six when the team needs a spark is not lost on Montgomery.
“I think his ability to make plays is underrated,” Montgomery said Thursday. “We saw it last night. The backhand sauce, not a lot of people make that play that easily, full speed.”
On the other side of the swap, van Riemsdyk was moved to the fourth line with Johnny Beecher and Jakub Lauko. Montgomery said the move was not to “punish” van Riemsdyk, but rather because he liked how Lucic was skating and he wanted to spread apart minutes.
Montgomery liked van Riemsdyk’s game, saying he was in the right areas and made good passes that just “didn’t click.”
In playing with younger linemates in Beecher, 22, and Lauko, 23, the 34-year-old van Riemsdyk immediately noticed their speed, and despite being deployed on the fourth line for the latter part of the game, he didn’t want to change his approach.
“That versatility of having guys being able to play in different spots in the lineup and still be productive is important,” van Riemsdyk told The Hockey News on Thursday. “So you just try to have that same approach shift in, shift out and go from there.”
Montgomery is a big advocate in versatility, both in terms of position and playing up and down the lineup, and he tinkered with the lineup during Wednesday’s game and often made switches last season.
With a veteran-led team where everyone was comfortable playing with one another – especially at the top of the lineup – Montgomery felt better about moving players around into different combinations. This year, with all the new faces, he plans to focus on establishing chemistry.
“That’s the way I envision handling it, to let them play it out and have the opportunity to make more plays with each other,” Montgomery said Thursday. “But as the game goes on, I find in the third period, you got to trust your gut no matter what’s going on.
"And if you see an opportunity to get someone in a position where you think two players are clicking, and they could click right there, I think you got to do that in the third, but be more patient in the first and second.”