Bruce Cassidy threw a curveball right before puck drop, and it helped get Bruins’ big guns back on track

The Bruins might have trailed in their best-of-seven series with the Toronto Maple Leafs heading into Wednesday night, but there was some solace to be found when the club took to the ice for warmups ahead of Game 4 at Scotiabank Arena.  

Injuries have been a common occurrence with this Bruins club for most of the season, but a couple of returning regulars were poised to bring some much-needed equilibrium to the lineup — with Marcus Johansson skating on the second line with David Krejci and Jake DeBrusk, while John Moore logged pregame reps next to Matt Grzelcyk on the blue line.

Adding Johansson to the top six injected some additional scoring punch, but with the trio of Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak sticking together during warmups, it looked as though Bruce Cassidy was going to hold true to his word from the following afternoon — and wait for the overdue top line to sort things out amongst themselves.

That appeared to be the plan ... well, at least for the first two minutes of warmups. Then, Cassidy called an audible.

“(I was) just told to warm up on (the third) line and then got put on Bergy and March’s line,” Danton Heinen said. “So it is what it is. It’s (Cassidy’s) stuff to think about and we just get ready to play with whoever we’re with.”

Sure enough, just minutes ahead of Game 4 against Toronto, Cassidy opted to put his lines in a blender — promoting Heinen up from the bottom six to the top line with Bergeron and Marchand, slotting Pastrnak down with Krejci and DeBrusk and bumping Johansson down to a third line with Charlie Coyle and David Backes.

Without the benefit of last change up in Toronto, Cassidy has had an uphill battle when it comes to finding the proper matchups for his big guns in Boston’s lineup — with the Marchand-Bergeron-Pastrnak line limited to zero points and just one high-danger scoring chance generated during Monday’s Game 3 loss.

Perhaps a last-second switcheroo could do the trick?

“Heinen has played with Bergy and March when Pasta was out for four, five weeks,” Cassidy said. “Did a good job out there, tailed off a little at the end. Not sure if Danton can sustain it at this point of his career — every night against top lines, against top teams.

"But he certainly does a nice job in spots. Pasta and Krech have played together, so it's just a different look. … Just moving some pieces around, hope it gives us a spark. Maybe makes them think. You never know it might affect how they do things.”

The reasoning was certainly there — but what about the results?



From a matchup perspective, Mike Babcock didn’t budge with his regular fivesome of Hyman-Tavares-Marner // Muzzin-Zaitsev that went head to head with Bergeron on Boston’s top line, while the Morgan Rielly-Ron Hainsey D pairing and Auston Matthews’ line once again shadowed Krejci’s crew.

The only difference this time around: The Bruins’ go-to options up front finally made the Leafs pay,  even if they were split up for most of Boston’s 6-4 win up in Toronto.

Limited to just six combined points through the first three games of the series, Bergeron, Marchand and Pastrnak equaled that scoring output on Wednesday — with Cassidy seemingly pushing all of the right buttons to get his slumping forwards back on track.

“I think it sparked everybody,” Pastrnak said postgame. “To give them a little bit of a different look. It was fun, I’ve been playing with (Krejci) a lot. I know what to expect and we all know Heinz played great with those guys. It’s good for us.”

It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that a Marchand-Bergeron-Heinen line was once again able to find some traction out on the ice.

Standing as Boston’s stopgap when Pastrnak was sidelined by injury for most of February and Marchand, Heinen complimented an already plus-defensive forward line during his time in the top six — with the 63-37-43 line only allowing four 5v5 goals in 197 minutes of 5v5 TOI together during the regular season, while also generating 3.34 goals per 60 minutes of play.

Sure enough, the trio picked up right where they left off on Wednesday. In 9:21 of 5v5 TOI together, the Marchand-Bergeron-Heinen line was out for a pair of goals scored, while Boston held the edge in shot attempts (14-7), shots on goal (8-5) and scoring chances generated (8-4) while all three were out together.

Bumping up Heinen with a pair of forwards he’s already gelled with seemed like a no-brainer. As for Pastrnak? The most snakebit of Boston’s top skaters through Games 1-3 with just one assist and a slew of giveaways to his name, Pastrnak was handed a bit of a wake-up call through the first 20 minutes of play.

Few would call skating alongside the likes of Krejci a “demotion”, but Pastrnak spent most of the opening stanza watching the action from the bench. After Backes (3:17), Pastrnak logged the fewest TOI of any Bruins player in the first period at just 3:38.

Given the circumstances, it surprised few that Pastrnak hopped over the boards with a head of steam during the following period, and Cassidy put his top sniper in a position to succeed.

With an energized Pastrnak finding his legs in the early minutes of the period, Cassidy opted to switch No. 88 back up to his usual spot with Bergeron and Marchand. Just a few seconds into their reunion, that line rewarded Cassidy with a goal — as Pastrnak deflected a puck past Frederik Andersen on a 2-on-1 sequence with Marchand to finally get on the board.



“It’d been done before,” Bergeron said of bumping Pastrnak down with Krejci. “I don’t know how many times this year — a handful of times. It’s to change the mindset of the lines — just keep it simple and I guess bring the puck on net a little more. It’s definitely not a demotion, to be honest with you, and right now, it’s all about getting the results.”

Of the 14:19 of 5v5 TOI in which Pastrnak had his number called on Wednesday, he only spent 1:07 with his regular linemates in Bergeron and Marchand — but Cassidy’s in-game shuffling came at the perfect time to get the winger going. Sure enough, just 1:35 after Pastrnak lit the lamp, he was at it again, this time burying a feed from Marchand past Andersen on the power play to make it a 4-2 game at the time.

For as much as he’s struggled this series, Pastrnak still has the offensive firepower to tilt the balance of a playoff matchup with just a couple of shifts — with his two tallies on Wednesday standing as the 13th and 14th goals that he has scored against Toronto in his past 17 games against the Leafs (postseason inc.)

With last change back in Boston’s hands at TD Garden on Friday, it remains to be seen if Cassidy will revert back to his original lineup or keep this juggled-up crew together in what will be a pivotal Game 5.

For a Bruins club that has rolled out an absurd 46 different line combinations that have logged at least 15 minutes of 5v5 TOI together, preference for one’s personnel has not been a luxury usually afforded to Boston in 2018-19. But if the results are there, it doesn’t seem like the Bruins are going to harp too much on who’s playing to the left or right of them.

“That’s part of the game,” Marchand said. “We switch things up a lot this year. Nice that we got some bounces tonight. Hopefully, we get ‘em next game.”