Final: Cassidy tweaks lineup as Flyers defeat Bruins 5-1

The Flyers defeated the Bruins 5-1 Thursday night at Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia in the penultimate preseason game for Boston. The Bruins conclude the preseason against the Blackhawks on Saturday in Chicago.

Here are four observations from Thursday’s game:

Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy made it clear that he’s not afraid to change his lineup if things aren't going well. That was the case when he replaced rookie forward Jake DeBrusk with Kenny Agostino on David Krejci’s line, along with David Pastrnak, to begin the third period. Agostino took full advantage of the opportunity as that line quickly scored. He played with a lot of energy in the final period, as DeBrusk finished with Sean Kuraly and David Backes.

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DeBrusk had a potential goal called back in the first period. He isn’t afraid to go to the dirty areas as he redirected a shot by defenseman Rob O’Gara, but it was disallowed because of goalie interference. DeBrusk has been doing a solid job of getting to the front of the net during training camp and the preseason. The rookie understands that’s where all of his goals should come from, especially playing with the likes of Krejci and Pastrnak. It was an interesting move by Cassidy to replace DeBrusk and it could have been a motivational factor.

"We weren't competitive enough," Cassidy told reporters after the game. "First period, we put ourselves in a tough spot, we took four penalties. A couple of them, I wasn’t sure what they were. It's tough to kill. You're playing against a good team on the road and then you get a couple disallowed goals. It just seems like we were chasing the game the whole night. If that's going to happen then you need the guys that are here pushing for jobs to give you energy to get you back in it, but that didn't happen either, I thought, at least not enough."

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No doubt the Bruins’ top line of Brad Marchand, Patrice Bergeron and Anders Bjork will log plenty of ice time. While Marchand and Bergeron are used to that, some wonder if Bjork can keep up. That shouldn’t be an issue, at least to start the season, and Bergeron admitted as much to BSJ earlier in the week. There is one concern: Since Bjork has the puck on his stick often he’ll be on the receiving end of plenty of hits. He’s handled it so far but the physicality will ramp up when the regular season begins.

A few of the final lineup decisions could be based on a player’s ability to kill penalties. Cassidy talked about that prior to Thursday’s game. We know Bergeron, Marchand, Krejci and Noel Acciari are the go-to guys on the team, but the Bruins allowed two power-play goals and a shorthanded goal against the Flyers. Krejci and DeBrusk were on the ice for the short-handed goal. The PK was not tight and the players were out of position.

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I’m all for a good fight when warranted, but Krejci dropping the gloves in a preseason game against Flyers rookie Nolan Patrick was just ridiculous. Both players are crucial to the success of their respective teams and the last thing they need is to get injured in the preseason. It wasn’t a heavyweight bout, but still, both players need to be healthy for the regular season.

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This is what Krejci looked like after the game.