Ryan: Boston's critical 4th line has 'leaked oil' this season, but Bruce Cassidy is holding out hope for rebound

"It's a tough job, but somebody's gotta do it" might as well be the mantra of the Bruins' fourth line.

As much as some checking forwards and bottom-six grinders relish the role of playing a north-south game and leaving welts against the opposition — such a spot in the Bruins' lineup involves far more than just throwing your weight around.

With Bruce Cassidy and his staff looking to hand both Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci's lines more O-zone starts and favorable ice in order to avoid those taxing shifts spent defending in their own end, the lion's share of those daunting matchups typically tend to fall to the likes of a Sean Kuraly, Chris Wagner and others.

Such has been the trend for years now, especially with Boston trying to preserve a  player with plenty of miles tacked on in Bergeron. As esteemed as Bergeron's two-way play has been for years now, the star center has been handed more and more starts and faceoffs in the offensive zone with each new season — giving him, Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak more time spent in the opponent's side of the ice.

Back in 2013, just 41.61% of Bergeron's faceoffs at 5v5 play came in the offensive zone. The only B's regular with a lower O-zone faceoff percentage was Chris Kelly (34.12%).

In 2014, Bergeron's O-zone faceoff percentage at 5v5 play rose to 46.45%. 

By 2016-17? 54.72%. 

2017-18? 61.22%

This season? 63.30%.

Notice a trend?

But as the Bruins continue to feed their top line more reps in the offensive zone, that has led to the B's fourth line regularly stuck with a heavy dose of challenging shifts, headlined by Kuraly and Wagner as the usual suspects in that bottom-six spot.

Since the 2018 season, the duo of Kuraly and Wagner have logged over 1,200 minutes of 5v5 ice time together — with just 29.51% of their faceoffs set in the offensive zone. Quite the ask, to say the least.

It's far from an ideal situation for those two, but Boston has regularly made the most of it, with the play of an Acciari-Kuraly-Wagner line in the 2019 Stanley Cup Playoffs in particular playing a key role in that run — as that trio not only potted some goals of their own, but also successfully negated opposing top-six units, allowing Bergeron and Krejci to land some punches against weaker matchups as well.

In 2021, two-thirds of that fourth line remain intact on this Bruins roster — but the same unfortunately can't be said about the results.



When you're spending most of your shifts defending in your own zone, it's to be expected to be on the wrong side of some shot-possession metrics. But the duo of Kuraly + Wagner have routinely spent a large portion of their 5v5 reps chasing the puck in their end in 2021 — with little pushback down the other end of the ice.

In total, the Bruins have been outscored 9-4 when that pair has been on the ice together this season in 152:31 of 5v5 ice time. Perhaps more concerning than the overall lopsided goal totals is that the optics on the ice seems to be a far cry from what Bruins fans have been accustomed to.

When Kuraly and Wagner are both rolling, the rest of Boston's lineup seems to fall into place. At their best, Wagner hits anything and everything that moves out on the ice, while Kuraly can thrive as a "one-man cycle" — with his mid-series return in the 2019 Toronto series playing a major role in that eventual seven-game triumph. But those trademark shifts have unfortunately been a bit harder to come by as of late — with a number of unforced errors and slip-ups putting these regulars on unsteady ground as far as the depth chart is concerned.

Kuraly had a night to forget on Wednesday against the Capitals — with a D-zone turnover leading to a 5v5 tally from Lars Eller just seconds later, tying the contest at 1-1 in the third period en route to an eventual shootout loss. While Cassidy acknowledged that Kuraly brings value in terms of faceoffs (59%) and his heavy D-zone draws, he did add that other areas of the veteran's game have fallen into a rut as of late, with a potential fix coming by way of ramping things up on the ice.



"We expect all our centers to be the driver of lines for the most part, at least the communicator, the leader — usually starts with them. Sean has been a major part of our PK, which has been solid all year, has been good in the faceoff circle on that left dot. But some other parts of his game, I think, have leaked oil at times," Cassidy said. "Last night, he had some turnovers where I don't think he's skating — again, goes to pace. A player will call them bad decisions. But I think you make better decisions when your feet are moving.

"And both times he turned some pucks over — one of the PK, one on the first goal against where I just don't think he was thinking about going up ice and getting the motor running first. He's looking to make a play first. And I think that's where Sean has to be better. Get moving, get driving. Usually when that happens for him, he's through the neutral zone. He's a hard guy to catch when he's moving. And then those plays I think will be easier for him to make because all of a sudden he's past some of those opposite colored jerseys and only dealing with a couple of them and then it's up to them to sort of make their their plays once they have time and space."

With Wagner, Cassidy is simply looking for him to keep things simple and play hard, physical hockey. Struggles on the forecheck have prevented the fourth line from generating turnovers and tilting the ice back in Boston's favor — with a few heavy checks form the Walpole native potentially serving as the difference maker between a taxing defensive shift and a fruitful cycle in the O-zone.

"He always practices hard. He's a hard working guy," Cassidy said of Wagner. "I never had an issue with his effort , to me it was just I didn't think he was impacting the game well enough. We decide to get some people's attention, put some other people in the lineup, sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. ... The message was to play more Chris Wagner hockey, which is — on the forecheck, I didn't think he was finishing as many checks and he was a little bit hesitant and some of that's reading off the other guys and not wanting to get caught.

"But at the end of day, he has to play his game, be straight line, hard-nosed guy. When there's an opportunity to protect a puck in the o-zone, make sure you're hard on it and not throwing pucks away. In fairness to him, he starts a lot in his own end. So that's a big ask, but that is the ask. So you've got to sort of embrace that role and and get back to being the best version of himself. ... We're not expecting him to run the power play or lead the team in scoring, but just be a little harder to play against."

Barring any major tweaks ahead of Friday's matchup against the Caps, it seems as though both Kuraly and Wagner will get another go of it against Washington, with the veteran duo almost certainly matched up against either Evgeny Kuznetsov or Nicklas Bäckström's line. It's a daunting challenge, especially for a group that's been fighting it for awhile now. But somebody's got to do it.

If they can't, Boston is going to have to start looking elsewhere.

"The end of the day, the role of that line for a long time has been to play against good players, play good, sound, defensive hockey — gritty hockey, whether that's a shot block or finishing checks, annoying the other teams' top players. ... And right now, they're going through a tough time. So we're going to try to pull (Sean) through it. And Kuraly and Wags have been at this level for a while, (Anders) Bjork not quite as much and (Trent Frederic) when he's been there. So we kind of expect them to also pull themselves out of it and help us win."