From trial by fire to ‘all-world plays’, Coyle-Johansson’s chemistry has sparked at perfect time for Bruins

The results haven’t exactly been there this season when Boston’s two trade-deadline gambits have skated on the same line together. Still, Marcus Johansson wasn’t selling the B’s new-look third line short going into Thursday’s second-round series opener against the Blue Jackets.

“I feel like we’ve played well together pretty much the whole time," he said. "You know, the puck just hasn’t gone in for us.”

When Don Sweeney and the Bruins pulled the trigger on a pair of transactions to bring aboard Johansson and Charlie Coyle in late February — it was easy to chart out the vision that Boston had hoped to realize during the waning weeks of the 2018-19 season.

In the days leading up to Coyle’s arrival, Boston’s often-juggled third line had once again left much to be desired — with youngsters like Jakob Forsbacka Karlsson and Colby Cave unable to take the reins of the open pivot spot. As such, the listless group as a whole only generated one high-danger scoring chance over its previous four games before the Coyle deal was struck.

By adding a two-way pivot in Coyle that could drive a line and give Bruce Cassidy a bottom-six unit capable of logging 14-16 minutes of TOI a night, Boston potentially had the pieces in place to ease some of the scoring duties placed upon Boston’s big guns like Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand, David Krejci and David Pastrnak.

Adding Johansson, a speedy winger who's potted 20-plus goals in two separate seasons, would put Boston’s third line over the top.

And then ... the tolls that come from a grueling NHL regular-season campaign took effect.

With Johansson missing over three weeks of action due to a lung contusion and the absence of David Pastrnak (thumb) opening up vacancies in the top-six, Cassidy didn’t have much of a window to allow Coyle and Johansson to mesh together going into the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

And even when they were out on the ice together, the results were decidedly mixed.

As Johansson said, the scoring wasn’t quite there — with the Bruins only tallying one 5v5 goal in the 10 games and 54:24 of ice time in which Coyle and Johansson were on the same line. But beyond the production, the third line was often chasing the puck, generating a 44.55 CF% (minus-11 differential in shot attempts) and only creating 11 high-danger scoring chances — while surrendering 15 high-danger looks down the other end of the ice.

So, what’s changed since then? It’s not the personnel. Not a shift in strategy, or new set plays. Rather, it’s been the one thing that wasn’t afforded to Coyle and Johansson during the regular season.

Precious, precious time.



“Well, it’s starting to develop, obviously,” Cassidy said on Thursday of the chemistry between Coyle and Johansson.

He’s not wrong: both skaters teamed up for a pair of tallies just 9:50 apart that proved to be the difference in what was a 3-2 overtime victory for the B’s over the Blue Jackets at TD Garden.

While the regulars like Bergeron, Marchand, Krejci and Pastrnak were all kept off the stat sheet, the Coyle line went to work, as Coyle blasted an offering past Sergei Bobrovsky at 5:15 in the third period — forcing overtime after Columbus lit the lamp twice in the span of 13 seconds earlier in the stanza.

The sequence, generated off of a slick, backhand feed from Johansson to a lurking Coyle on the opposite end of the slot, managed to even surprise Chris Wagner out on the ice.

“That’s about as skilled as it gets, I’d say," Wagner said. "I was kind of surprised of where he was passing — I had no idea. I didn’t even know that Charlie was over there."



Coyle and Johansson were not done. After gathering the puck from Danton Heinen upon breaking into the Jackets' zone, Johansson once again fed the biscuit into a Grade-A area — where a driving Coyle was able to meet it halfway and tip it home to close out the dramatic win and give Boston a 1-0 edge in the series.

“That second goal is an all-world play,” Cassidy said. “I mean, shot-ready Charlie. We’ve talked about Marcus, right? He had an injury here early with us, then he got sick, so he hasn’t had time to really develop a lot of that. Practice time is limited down at the end of the year, so he’s got to do it on the fly.”



Coyle has answered the call in his first playoff run with his hometown club — tallying five goals and six total points over eight games while averaging 15:58 of TOI a night. But with Johansson now back in the fold after missing two postseason games earlier this month due to illness, the winger’s playmaking vision has given Boston a potent scoring option in the bottom six, especially during 5v5 play. 

In six playoff games together, a line featuring both Coyle and Johansson has already fared much better than what the duo generated during the regular season. In 52:35 of 5v5 TOI, Coyle and Johansson have been out for three goals scored, while also generating a CF% of 54.44.

While the opposition has only generated four high-danger scoring bids during that stretch, Coyle-Johansson has accounted for nine — with most created by Johansson sending the puck not to where Coyle is, but where he’s going to be in a split-second.

“Well, that’s his vision, right? His hockey IQ,” Cassidy said of Johansson. “It’s what’s made him a good player over the year, right? He’s got pace to his game. … Tonight it was there, and he made the plays when he had to.

“So, that’s just a God-given ability to see the ice and have the timing to know where the guy’s going to (be) — like a quarterback throwing to a receiver in motion, right? Where they’re going to put it in his wheelhouse.”

Even though Bergeron drilled home an empty netter with just a second remaining in Boston’s Game 7 victory over Toronto, Boston’s offensive contributions as of late have come from not your usual suspects. In total, seven of the Bruins’ last eight goals scored in the postseason have been from bottom-six skaters (Coyle, Johansson, Noel Acciari, Sean Kuraly and Joakim Nordstrom).

As Boston’s top six looks to get back on the same page, both Coyle and Johansson have picked the perfect time to get hot. Imagine what happens when all four lines start to hum at the same time.

“I think any good Stanley Cup caliber team has to have it at some point,” Cassidy said of secondary scoring. “We’re getting it. We need it. Like I said, when the other guys fall into place, that’s when you really become dangerous.

“That’s, obviously, our hope that guys that were scoring during the year on a consistent level will get back to that level and the secondary guys will pitch in when they need to and they’re still doing it.”