The Bruins might have one more regular-season game left on the docket, but it’s never too early to look ahead to the Stanley Cup Playoffs — starting with Boston’s first-round rematch against the Maple Leafs. Even after posting another 100-point campaign this season, the Bruins — like most NHL clubs – still have quite a few questions that need to be answered ahead of postseason play. Let’s take a look:
So … who goes where?
Despite a couple of longer-term injuries to both John Moore and Sean Kuraly (we’ll get to that in a minute), Boston should have a pretty full complement of players when it drops the puck against Toronto next week. The question is — where do you put everyone?
Already stuck with a short window to experiment with his lineup following injuries to skilled wingers such as David Pastrnak and Marcus Johansson, Bruce Cassidy might just have to go with his gut going into the playoffs, especially with a number of starters likely scratched for Saturday’s regular-season finale.
Thankfully, Boston’s bench boss has plenty of options when it comes to constructing his forward corps. If all of Boston’s regular defensemen are cleared for postseason action, you’d have to imagine the B’s D corps will look something like this:
Chara-McAvoy
Krug-Carlo
Grzelcyk-Miller
As for the forwards, well. … It gets a bit more complicated.
At this point, it looks as though Boston’s best bet might be with keeping its potent first line of Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand and Pastrnak intact. You can’t argue with the production (27 5v5 goals scored over 461 minutes together), even if the trio’s 24 goals allowed is a major increase from the 17 relinquished last year in over 70 more of time on ice together.
While Boston has found success at times with Danton Heinen slotted up with Bergeron and Marchand, especially on the defensive end (11 goals scored, four goals allowed over 145 minutes), the Marchand-Bergeron-Pastrnak line feasted against Toronto’s D corps last spring — tallying nine goals over the seven-game series. Look for more of the same this spring, especially if 38-year-old Ron Hainsey is still expected to handle top-pairing responsibilities *shudders*.
Inserting Heinen down to a third line anchored by Charlie Coyle should give that unit a bit more of a well-rounded crew, especially if complemented by Marcus Johansson on the right side. While Johansson would be playing his off wing, the speedy winger always deferred to left winger Alex Ovechkin when the two would share top-line duties in Washington — so it’s a spot that Johansson is more than familiar with.
A Heinen-Coyle-Johansson combination has only logged a combined 9:21 of ice time together this season — with reps limited after Johansson missed over three weeks of play due to a lung contusion. It’s by no means a sure thing in terms of what Boston can get out of those three on the offensive side of things, but having a pair of plus-defensive players in Heinen and Coyle does give Cassidy the flexibility to roll that line out for a harder matchup than what would be expected from some of the other third-line combos that Boston has showcased this season, especially ones anchored by young pivots such as Jakob Forsbacka Karlsson and Trent Frederic.
A good showing from Coyle and Johansson on Tuesday in Columbus might be all that Cassidy has to lean on in terms of encouragement from his new-look third line, with the duo teaming up for Johansson’s first tally as a Bruin.
“They were good tonight,” Cassidy said of Coyle and Johansson. “I thought (Bruins assistant coach
Jay Pandolfo)
met with them to go over a few offensive-zone things where I think Charlie can be a little more assertive. Hanging onto pucks. He's a big man. He was trying to make some plays where, listen, you make your plays when you see them. So we don't want to get in his head, but I think there's times where he can be harder to play against by possessing the puck and I thought he did a lot more of that tonight.
“Johansson got rewarded for going to the net, dirty area, we've talked about playing inside a little more. So a lot of good responses from them. I thought they had an excellent game.”
Slotting down
Chris Wagner
with a straightforward, north-south line with any assortment of
David Backes, Noel Acciari
and
Joakim Nordstrom
will give Boston a heavy group that can spell the Bergeron line at times from a tough matchup, while Backes has often been at his best this season in a fourth-line spot alongside Wagner — with the duo generating a plus-47 edge in shot attempts (60.35 Corsi For Percentage) over 120:28 of 5v5 TOI this season.
Of course, there’s still a vacancy on the second line with
David Krejci
and
Jake DeBrusk
, but, as improbable as it might have seemed just a little over a month ago, rookie
Karson Kuhlman
, especially with the two aforementioned forwards.
If Boston is going to have to slug its way past Toronto and potentially Tampa Bay this postseason, it’s going to need more than the Bergeron line to shoulder all of the scoring responsibilities. Keeping a DeBrusk-Krejci-Kuhlman line that is generating a team-high 7.02 5v5 goals scored per 60 minutes of play might remedy any scoring concerns.
How’s the health of the club?
Currently, the Bruins are doing alright on the injury front — at least, better than they’ve been over the last couple of trips to the postseason. After losing Brandon Carlo to season-ending injuries during the final stretch of each of the last two years, Boston appears to have
, who suffered a lower-body injury during Thursday’s win over the Wild, but was able to return if necessary.
Miller was eventually held out for the remainder of the game, but could return for Saturday’s home game against Tampa Bay.
As constituted now, Boston’s structure on the blue line is in much better shape than say, two years ago — when a green Matt Grzelcyk, 19-year-old Charlie McAvoy and Tommy Cross all logged minutes against the Senators in the first round of the 2017 Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Still, there are a couple of regulars still on the shelf for the Bruins in Moore and Kuraly.
Moore is currently listed as week-to-week after suffering an upper-body injury against the Lighting on March 25, while Kuraly fractured his hand while blocking a slap shot against the Devils on March 21. Kuraly is set to be re-evaluated in approximately two weeks — setting the stage for a potential return in the later stages of the Toronto series or the next round.
As of now, Moore would likely serve as Boston’s 7th D if all other bodies are accounted for, and a backup option in Connor Clifton is a pretty nice find for Boston, as the rookie defenseman leads all Bruins skaters in goals allowed per 60 minutes of play at 0.86. Still, losing an NHL veteran in Moore that can log time on both the second power-play unit and the penalty kill is a tough hit come the postseason — where more injuries are all but guaranteed.
So far, Boston’s reworked fourth line of Acciari, Nordstrom and Backes has found some traction together (55.21 CF%, plus-3 goal differential in 107 minutes of 5v5 TOI), but the loss of Kuraly does rob Boston of a versatile piece that likely would have earned looks up on Boston’s third line in due time had it not been for his injury.
Having already tallied a career-high 21 points over 71 games played this season, Kuraly is a speedy skater that is willing to throw his weight around, but also adds a nice level of skill to Boston’s bottom-six group. He’s also a regular on Boston’s penalty kill, averaging 1:18 of shorthanded TOI a night.
Since Kuraly went down with his injury on March 21, Boston’s penalty kill has only a 68.1 percent success rate.
It may not be the likes of Bergeron, Pastrnak or Chara, but Boston is a much better team when it has both Kuraly and Moore back in the fold.
What needs to change on the PK?
While Boston’s power play has hovered in the top five, league-wide, in success rate for most of the 2018-19 season, the club’s PK has had a bit more of a tumultuous path. Of course, losing stalwarts like
Zdeno Chara
(61 games played)
and Bergeron
(65 games played) will do that to you, but the unit has seemed to have fallen into a bit of a rut this month in particular.
Currently ranked 17th in the NHL in terms of the PK (80.2% success rate), Boston has slipped from a spot in 10th place back on Feb. 26. Over the last five games, opponents have scored on six of its 15 bids on the man advantage against Boston — a 60% success rate for Boston.
For Cassidy, the biggest culprit in Boston’s struggles on the PK as of late does not lie in personnel, but rather, his players’ approach during two minutes or more of 5v4 play.
“I just think we got passive,” Cassidy said following Boston’s 2-for-4 PK showing during Tuesday’s win over the Blue Jackets. “We'll discuss that internally. You don't want to get down on a pretty good effort, but you're always correcting things. Detroit, they got a couple on us. So we've got to look at that, where we can be better and I think maybe being a little more aggressive on the kill, control the direction, force the team to make plays maybe under duress, maybe we can improve that.”
(Lots of puck watching on each of the sequences leading to Columbus’ power-play tallies on Tuesday).
If Boston wants to put together a sustained run through this postseason, it’s going to need to shore up its special teams, especially against Toronto and Tampa Bay teams that rank eighth and first, respectively, in power-play percentage.
Could we see Jaroslav Halak in net this postseason?
Boasting a .
924 save percentage over the span of 65 postseason appearances,
Tuukka Rask
will be Boston’s go-to option in net for Boston’s latest playoff run — barring a major change in direction.
And while the 32-year-old goalie is entering the postseason on a bit of slump (5-4-0, .882 save percentage over last nine outings), Rask is still 18-4-3 since the start of the new year with a .917 save percentage — including a 32-save performance against Columbus on Tuesday in his latest start.
Still, even with his playoff experience, Rask has run into his fair share of trouble against the Maple Leafs in the postseason — posting am .899 save percentage during the seven-game series against Toronto last April.
While Cassidy noted last week that Rask has been strong for most of this season, he also did not discount the play of backup
Jaroslav Halak
— who has posted a .922 save percentage over 40 games this season. With 489 career games under his belt, Halak is a more-than-suitable backup in net for Boston, and while he hasn’t appeared in a postseason matchup since April 27, 2015, he currently has a .924 save percentage over 30 playoff outings.
“We’re fortunate, we’ve got Jaro too,” Cassidy said. “Terrific numbers, who’s got a playoff resume, so we’ve got two to pick from if some injury or performance related, (issue) we can go to the next guy. Tuukka, I assume, will be our No. 1 going into the playoffs or Game 1 starter — between now and then, we’ll sort that out.”
As evidenced over the last couple of seasons in which teams like Washington (
Braden Holtby
Philipp Grubauer)
and Pittsburgh (
Marc-Andre Fleury
Matt Murray)
have flip-flopped between options in net before landing on the hot hand, Halak very well could get a start or two in the coming weeks if Rask runs into trouble against a Maple Leafs team that has averaged 3.47 goals per game.
If Halak is able to provide some relief over the next couple of weeks, it will be the icing on the cake in what has already been a fantastic signing for Boston this past summer.
Still, Rask should be more than ready for the extra workload that comes with the postseason — as his 45 games played this season rank as his fewest since the lockout-shortened 2012-13 season (36 games played). If we only want to include a full, 82-game slate, this has been Rask’s lightest workload since both the 2010-11 and 2011-12 seasons — where he was still a backup to
Tim Thomas
.
"We wanted to build a good back-up situation. We had it last year with (Anton) Khudobin," Cassidy said Thursday of keeping Rask fresh. "We know Tuukka is not a 65-starts-a-year goalie. He's just not built that way, so we have to make sure that we insulate ourselves in that area with a good solid backup. Halak was available, great guy. Good playoff resume as well. So we know we have a great tandem there, no matter which direction we go."
