With 5 games left, race is on to find a landing spot for Marcus Johansson in Bruins' lineup

It’s hard to argue with the results from Wednesday’s 6-3 trouncing of the Rangers.

On a night in which Bruce Cassidy rolled out over 10 different forward combinations, he struck gold in a top-six unit featuring David Pastrnak slotted down with David Krejci and Jake DeBrusk.

Just eight days removed from his return to game action after undergoing thumb surgery in February, it appears that Pastrnak has shaken off all the expected rust — as the 22-year-old winger helped a revamped Krejci line pot a pair of 5v5 goals en route to a three-goal, five-point night for himself. 

“(Noel) Acciari and (Joakim) Nordstrom were asking for Pasta too by the end, so generally when a guy’s feeling it, I don’t think he cares where he plays, and Pasta was feeling it tonight,” Cassidy remarked.

With five games remaining, it looks as though Cassidy might have found his solution to shore up the revolving door at right wing on Krejci’s line in the form of Pastrnak — who is now up to five goals and 11 points over five games since his return.

Pairing Pastrnak with a playmaking pivot like Krejci has translated to tallies numerous times already this season — with the duo generating a plus-21 shot and plus-7 goal differential during 272:23 of 5v5 TOI in which they’ve been skated together.

And yet, even after a game in which Pastrnak buried his third hat trick of the season (and second while skating on a line anchored by Krejci), Cassidy was non-committal when it came to keeping No. 88 down on the second line going forward.

“I did like what they did together. I don’t know. I don’t know Saturday if we’ll stick with it, to be perfectly honest,” Cassidy said of keeping Pastrnak and Krejci together. “We’ll look at it again. Usually, video will tell you a few things on maybe there’s some chemistry with certain guys that you don’t see during the course of the game, and you go okay well maybe this will work. So, we’ll see how it plays out.”

Of course, keeping Pastrnak up top with his usual linemates in Patrice Bergeron and Brad Marchand is a more than acceptable fall-back option — with that trio generating 26 5v5 goals in 429:25 of TOI together.

But perhaps the top reason for Cassidy’s equivocal response lies more in the fact that Pastrnak has proven what he can bring to either line in Boston’s top-six corps. Marcus Johansson, however, remains more of a mystery — one that Boston needs to solve before playoff hockey gets underway in short order.



When Boston dealt a 2019 second-round pick and 2020 fourth rounder to pry Johansson out of New Jersey in February, the B’s expected the 28-year-old winger to add some flexibility and depth to a B’s forward group that labored for most of the season when it comes to secondary scoring.

Now, with 13 different players lighting the lamp for Boston over a four-game stretch, Boston appears to have righted the ship when it comes to having a larger cast contribute on the scoresheet.

But with Johansson sidelined for 10 games this month while on the mend from a lung contusion, Cassidy and his staff haven’t had much of a window to see where the speedy skater could be most effective when it comes to balancing out Boston’s lineup.

As evidenced last season during the playoffs in which a Marchand-Bergeron-Pastrnak line tallied 23 points over a five-game postseason series against the Lighting in a losing effort — Boston is going to need to roll out four effective lines if it has any hopes of playing into late May and early June this year.

Utilizing a gifted playmaker like Johansson can go a long way in helping Boston realize that goal, although time is not on Cassidy’s side when it comes to finding the best cast of characters to surround Boston’s deadline acquisition with.

“We want to finish second (in the Atlantic),” Cassidy said Wednesday morning of Boston’s goals for the final 10 days of the regular season. “Right, that’s the first one. We prefer home ice. Get our guys healthy and integrated into the lineup. .... And then, where does Johansson best fit? I think that’s the biggest question mark for us. We know Charlie (Coyle) has slotted to be out third-line center. We moved him to wing with Krech and liked some results, but at the end of the day, he’s going to be our third-line center. We’re a better team with him in there. That will be the next thing.”

During the short time in which he’s been cleared for game action, Johansson has found himself on Krejci’s wing in a top-six spot. As such, that was where the winger began Wednesday’s game against New York — back with a pair of skaters that he has generated a plus-15 differential in shot attempts in just under 37 minutes of 5v5 TOI together.

But the results were largely underwhelming in the opening stanza on against the Blueshirts — with the DeBrusk-Krejci-Johansson line out for just two shot attempts for and six against (25.00 CF%) while generating zero scoring chances in 4:10 of 5v5 TOI together.

On most nights, the combination would be one that Cassidy might tinker with going into the third stanza, or perhaps leave alone as Johansson shakes off the rust from an extended absence. But with time not on Boston’s side at this point in the season, Cassidy introduced Johansson to a crash course through the rest of Boston’s forward corps — both promoting him for a brief spell with Bergeron’s line before primarily slotting down with Coyle’s line over the final two periods. 

A bottom-six role for Johansson seems like a necessary move for this Bruins team now, especially when the club’s latest third-line combination of Coyle, Chris Wagner and Danton Heinen have been edged in shot attempts, 35-9, in just three games together.

At this point, Boston knows Pastrnak can more than hold his own with Krejci and DeBrusk, while the Bergeron line hasn’t missed a step when Heinen has earned a look up top.

And while Johansson’s debut with Coyle and Wagner was largely mixed (42.86 CF%, minus-1 shot differential in 3:27 of 5v5 TOI together) on Wednesday, Cassidy expects the winger will continue to earn reps with Boston’s third-line pivot going forward.

With five games to go, usually this is a time in the season in which a team like Boston usually steps off the gas for a bit — having already clinched a playoff berth and now just a few points away from securing home ice in the first round.

But with a crucial cog like Johansson still without a defined role — expect Cassidy and his staff to continue to juggle the lines at a breakneck pace in what will be a hurried race to the finish line.

“It’s a short window of opportunity here with the full forward group,” Cassidy said. “Obviously, [Sean] Kuraly isn’t a part of that and won’t be in the next little while. But Johansson coming in, so you’re almost trying to get a look at him everywhere. … You know, Marchy and Bergy, with Heinen, they’ve played with him. We tried to mix Johansson in there later, but he got a few shifts with Coyle, and then the power play starts, which is really tough to get a handle on a true measure of five-on-five with Johansson on any line tonight.

"So, that part of it we missed out on, but he got himself a game under his belt. He hadn’t played in a while, so hopefully, like Pasta, each one he gets a little better."