The Bruins’ third line is rolling, and the Hurricanes may not have an answer for it

When Riley Nash inked a contract with the Columbus Blue Jackets back on July 1, the vacancy left in the Bruins’ bottom-six corps loomed large for the remainder of the summer. 

Nash’s replacement had big shoes (skates?) to fill, with the pivot tallying a career-high 41 points in 2017-18 while centering a pair of skaters in Danton Heinen and David Backes that logged 331 minutes of 5v5 TOI on the year — good for the third most reps of any forward line on the team.

Such consistency was far from the case the following year, however. Opting to allocate cap space this past offseason on depth (Jaroslav Halak in net, John Moore on defense and both Chris Wagner and Joakim Nordstrom up front), the Bruins went with the in-house route when it came to finding Nash’s replacement, with younger skaters like Sean Kuraly, Jakob Forsbacka Karlsson and Colby Cave all given the keys to the third line.

It didn’t take very long for things to stall.

While both the Bergeron and Krejci lines shouldered most of the scoring burden for the first five months of the season, Bruce Cassidy and his staff struggled to find the right combination on the third line — mixing and matching youngsters like Forsbacka Karlsson and Ryan Donato, incorporating a veteran like Backes and promoting a fourth liner such as Nordstrom.

The most utilized combination — featuring Forsbacka Karlsson, Heinen and Donato — only managed to be out on the ice for four 5v5 goals scored in close to 120 minutes of ice time. That equals out to goals for per 60 minutes rate of 2.00, good for 12th place among all Bruins lines that played more than 50 minutes together this season.

Adding Cave to the mix didn’t alleviate Boston’s secondary-scoring woes, with a line of Nordstrom-Cave-Backes only accounting for 41 percent of total shot attempts in 59 minutes of 5v5 TOI.

Something eventually had to give in late February, when Boston’s third line only managed to generate one high-danger scoring chance through the first four matchups of a five-game road trip out west.

Don Sweeney pulled the trigger — bringing aboard Charlie Coyle and Marcus Johansson in a pair of deals in an effort to balance out Boston’s lineup ahead of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

But few seemed overly encouraged on the eve of postseason play when it came to Boston’s deadline acquisitions. Down the final stretch of the regular season, both Coyle and Johansson only managed to tally three combined goals for the B’s, while the latter's injury in early March limited the window for him to gel with Coyle at center.

In total, both forwards only generated one 5v5 goal in 54:24 of TOI together going into the postseason, giving the Bruins another unproven crew going into the postseason.

At the very least, adding NHL regulars like Coyle and Johansson would give the Bruins a third line that could play a dependable game and not be a liability down the end of the ice.

So far, the combo of Johansson-Coyle-Heinen have lived up to the billing in that facet of the game. What few expected —especially the Hurricanes — is for that line to be a force in the O-zone as well.



Boston’s blue line might have led the way (three goals, six total points) in the B’s 6-2 shellacking of Carolina in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Finals on Sunday, but the Coyle line once again imposed its will against the Canes’ bottom-six forwards — combining for a goal and six assists on the evening.

Any second guesses about Coyle and Johansson’s fit on this club have gone out the window in short order this spring — with duo tallying nine goals and 21 total points this postseason, while generating 25 individual high-danger scoring chances against the Leafs, Blue Jackets and ‘Canes.

“The more we play together, the better it feels,” Johansson said. “We really trust each other out there and we get to know each other more and more each day. So far it has been good, and hopefully, we can keep it going.”

While the Marchand-Bergeron-Pastrnak line might be the key cog that gets the Bruins’ offense going, the Johansson-Coyle-Heinen crew has managed to equal that trio in terms of 5v5 goals generated (five) — despite playing 50 fewer minutes together.

So far this series, Carolina has struggled to find an answer for the Coyle line — with the bottom-six crew outscoring the Hurricanes, 3-0, in 19:50 of 5v5 TOI so far this series. Impressive totals, given the fact that only 46.1 percent of Coyle’s faceoffs have come from within the offensive zone.

In the O-zone, both Coyle and Johansson have been hard to knock off the puck, with Coyle, in particular, using 6-foot-3, 220-pound frame to clear space in front for trailing Bruins while dragging Canes skaters with him — as seen below on both goals for Matt Grzelcyk.

(Coyle draws Andrei Svechnikov away from Johansson and sets a pick on Justin Faulk to give No. 90 some space to cycle)



(Coyle charges at Petr Mrazek, drawing a pair of Carolina skaters with him before screening Mrazek in the seconds leading up to Grzelcyk’s power play goal.)



Adding a defensive-minded forward in Heinen to a pair of puck-possession skaters in Coyle and Johansson has also been a home run for the Bruins, with Heinen leading all Bruins this postseason with a goals against per 60 minute rate of just 0.61.

“I think Danton, one of the attributes he has is his hockey IQ,” Cassidy said. “He likes to make plays, certainly shoot it when he has it, he’s been better on the walls, always willing to block shots, so those parts of his game don’t leave him, but he’s smart. So he knows what the other guys need.”

The Coyle line’s surge in production this postseason should concern the Hurricanes for a variety of reasons — chief of which is the fact that Rod Brind’Amour’s club is already using plenty of its top forwards and D-men in matchups against both the Bergeron and Krejci lines.

In Game 2, the top forward group matched up against Coyle was the fourth line of Greg McKegg, Jordan Martinook and Micheal Ferland, while the ‘Canes third D pairing of Calvin de Haan and Haydn Fleury also spent most of their minutes against Coyle and Co.

The results? The McKegg line only generated one shot attempt against Coyle in over five minutes of 5v5 TOI, while Fleury-de Haan were out for a pair of 5v5 goals against. Not good.

Perhaps Brind’Amour will opt to roll out one his top-six lines led by Sebastian Aho and Jordan Staal against Coyle’s crew in Game 3, especially after the Bergeron line dominated Aho on Sunday — with Boston holding a 4-0 edge in SOG in the 6:22 of ice time where No. 37 battled the Finnish pivot. 

But then of course, which forward group for Carolina will then have unlucky draw of trying to contain Boston’s top line, or if necessary, a second line featuring David Krejci, Jake DeBrusk and Backes?

With the Coyle line operating at such a high level, Boston has a three-headed monster up front when it comes to production in the O zone — and Carolina may not have the personnel to negate all three throughout the course of a game.

"The Charlie Coyle line right now creates a big problem, I think, for the other team,” Cassidy said. “Okay, you’ve got Bergy’s line right out of the gate. You’ve got Krejci, who’s a known playoff scorer now with DeBrusk.

“Now you’ve got a third line to deal with, so usually getting your d-pairs out there it’s a lot of work to play against, you know, if you want to play your top pair against two of those three lines. So, it’s a big ask, and I think that’s a difficult ask as well, so it’s benefited us a lot.”