Bruce Cassidy’s plan to inject some ‘internal competition’ into Bruins lineup paid off on Tuesday

When the Bruins made the call last week to waive both Brett Ritchie and David Backes, it didn’t take very long for the speculation to run rampant. Was a trade brewing for the B’s? Would clearing at least $2 million in cap space change the B’s outlook on the upcoming deadline?

But for Bruce Cassidy and his staff, the rationale between the moves was a bit simpler.

With Boston treading water ahead of the league-mandated bye week, Cassidy opted to put his underachieving roster on notice. But the message was not sent by way of Ritchie and Backes’ demolitions. Rather, it was communicated by who the B’s chose to bring up.



“What we’re trying to do – again, I’ll be very open, is we decided a couple of weeks ago or whatever it was that we needed a little more internal competition,” Cassidy said Tuesday night. “Usually, that starts from the bottom up. We identified some guys in Providence that were playing well."

Generating competition from within the organization has been a trademark of many Cassidy clubs over the last couple of seasons. 

Boston benefited from it last year when the likes of Jeremy Lauzon, Connor Clifton and John Moore all scrapped for minutes in wake of Kevan Miller’s long list of injuries, while Karson Kuhlman eventually secured a top-six role during the Bruins’ playoff run after initially serving as a simple depth call-up back in February. 

This year has been more of the same. So far, the Bruins have had 35 different players appear in at least one NHL game in 2019-20 — ranking second in the NHL behind Ottawa. But with his team in need of a shot in the arm going into the break, Cassidy made one of his more drastic lineup reshuffles in recent memory ahead of Boston's matchup against the Golden Knights. 

After a stretch of lackluster play, veteran John Moore was replaced on the blue line with Lauzon — appearing in just second game up in the NHL ranks this season. Kuhlman, back in the fold after missing an extended stretch due to a broken tibia, remained in the lineup for the third straight game, while bruising winger Anton Blidh made his season debut on a fourth line next to Sean Kuraly and Chris Wagner. 

A few of the usual suspects in Boston's lineup might have orchestrated the club's third-period rally in what was a 3-2 Bruins win over the Golden Knights, but David Krejci (one goal, one assist) and Jake DeBrusk (one goal) were far from the only ones to leave their imprint on the victory.

Boston's opening tally of the night came off the stick of Lauzon — generated off of a hardworking forechecking shift from both Krejci and Kuhlman at 11:40 in the first. After both forwards closed in on Alex Tuch and forced a turnover along the boards, Krejci fed the biscuit over to a waiting Lauzon at the blue line — with the defenseman's long-range shot sailing past Marc-Andre Fleury to knot the game up at 1-1.

Lauzon, who logged 15:38 of ice time on Tuesday, was solid in his own end — with Boston holding a 2-0 edge in goals and an 8-6 edge in shots on goal during his 13:30 of 5v5 play.

"I thought he played hard, competes all over the ice. We’ve seen that before, so we expected that. Scores a goal — obviously, in a one-goal game, that matters," Cassidy said of Lauzon. "And did it in the right way, didn’t overthink it. Just got it, got off the wall, make sure you pound it hard so it gets by the first layer. ... But all-in-all had good composure, didn’t seem fazed by anything. We’ll always go back and look at it, there will be some details that we’ll talk about, but I liked his game. I thought he brought what we needed."

Kuhlman, who jumpstarted the scoring sequence by closing in on Tuch, has now tallied three assists over three games since getting called back up to Boston. That new-look line of Krejci, Kuhlman and Danton Heinen have not had much time together as a trio, but they hit the ground running on Tuesday — with Boston holding a 10-3 edge in shots on goal and a 2-0 advantage in 5v5 goals scored during their 8:45 of ice time together.

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It remains to be seen where Kuhlman fits into this lineup, but the winger isn't going to have many qualms about logging more minutes next to a playmaking pivot like Krejci.

"I think competition is a good thing," Kuhlman said. "I think it pushes everybody to play their best and practice their best and it makes everybody better. But at the same time, we've got a great group in here, so close, so tight and I think it shows when we're on the ice together."

Even if Blidh didn't get on the scoresheet Tuesday, the winger's efforts were still reflected in the final box score — as the Swede dished out three hits in 9:45 of ice time while earning plenty of reps against Vegas' potent forward grouping of Max Pacioretty, Paul Stastny and Mark Stone.

"He was one of that was hurt at the start of the year that we were going to look at in training camp," Cassidy said of Blidh. "I think we discussed that; we thought he was a lot closer than he was maybe a couple of years ago, so that was something that was going to be in the works when he was ready. We did it with Kuhlman. Lauzon, we took a veteran out in Moore, so Kuhly came up in place of however you want to look at it. So, that was a bit by design these last two weeks to see if it will give us a little extra push, so we’ll see where it leads us."

Looking at the big picture, it remains to be seen how long players like Lauzon and Blidh are regularly earning shifts up with Boston — especially once we get past the Feb. 24 trade deadline. But, at least for the immediate future, look for Cassidy to continue to lean on Boston's prospect pipeline for a spark — especially if it gets the regulars up on the NHL club to look over their shoulders.

It certainly worked on Tuesday.

"I think it's good," Blidh said of internal competition. "You don't want to get too comfortable in the lineup. You want to have someone pushing you on the back and I think that makes you a better team."