Matt Grzelcyk’s return - and Mike Reilly’s arrival - gets Bruins closer to their vision of dynamic D corps

The Bruins' blue line is still far from intact. 

With less than a month to go in the regular season, the Bruins are still without two of their most stout bodies on defense — with Kevan Miller still day-to-day with an undisclosed injury and their PK anchor in Brandon Caro week-to-week with his own ailment.

And while both defensemen will certainly be needed come the postseason to help snuff out scoring chances and — especially in Miller's case — counter physical opponents, the state of Boston's often banged-up, inexperienced D corps is suddenly looking a lot more promising than it was just a few weeks ago.

While Boston's defense over the years made its bones by routinely pummeling the competition and keeping pucks out of Grade-A ice, the game of hockey — and how teams utilize their D corps — has changed rapidly over the last couple of years, with more puck-moving talent and skill funneled into the lineup instead of rolling with 5-6 stay-at-home skaters.

And now, with Mike Reilly added to the mix and Matt Grzelcyk set to return Tuesday against Buffalo following a five-game absence, that vision of a Bruins D corps buoyed with playmaking potential and skill is coming closer and closer to fruition for Bruce Cassidy and his staff.



"Absolutely," Cassidy said of puck-moving D like Reilly and Grzelcyk being valued more and more in today's NHL. "I think most teams, if you look at how they were constructed — I don't know how far back you want to go: '90s, '80s, maybe 2000s, even, a little bit — there was usually defensive-minded, heavy guys. Toughness in every pair, minimum three to four guys out of a six or seven-man D corps and a couple of puck movers. Whereas now it's, I think, more the opposite.

"A lot of teams, you got at least one (puck mover) in every pair, if not two. And some of that had to do with the rule changes when they opened up the game a little bit with the sticks, parallel calls and the red line out, etc. So that's the way I see it now with most teams, and obviously, the high-end teams, if you can get those hybrid guys that are big and can defend and move the puck — then you're really in business. They're just not that easy to find. But you will see a lot more of that on most D corps. And you could probably do the exercise yourself on the successful ones, or the ones at least that are scoring goals. I mean, you can't have six guys that move the puck and don't defend. But at the end of the day, I do believe it's changed over the last, 20-25 years."

While we've already extensively covered both Reilly's impactful play out of the gate with Boston and Grzelcyk's value , their impact is magnified when both are in the lineup together — giving two of Boston's three pairings a significant amount of playmaking punch.

In terms of matchups, giving Reilly free rein on a second pairing (next to Connor Clifton on Tuesday — and potentially Carlo in the coming weeks) gives Cassidy the freedom to keep Grzelcyk with Charlie McAvoy on the top pairing — giving Boston a 5v5 buzzsaw on the blue line. It's tough to ignore the numbers that both BU products have put together on the ice, with Boston holding a 144-56 edge in shots on goal and a 12-4 advantage in goals scored during that duo's 202:19 of 5v5 ice time.

Those are some dominant numbers, but before Reilly's arrival, the case could have been made that keeping McAvoy+Grzelcyk together was putting too many eggs in one basket by keeping those offensive conduits together. Now, with Reilly able to drive offense on another pairing, the decision becomes a lot more easier for Cassidy in terms of structuring his defense and siccing that top pairing against opponents.

You add in the fact that having both Reilly and Grzelcyk in the lineup gives Boston two defensemen that lead all NHL blueliners in fewest shots blocked on their shots (Reilly - 20%) and shots on net percentage (Grzelcyk - 62%), and Boston's already revived 5v5 offense should receive another shot in the arm now that both skaters are in the lineup.

https://twitter.com/JFreshHockey/status/1384533369678139394

Of course, you can't win with just a pair of skilled skaters on defense — with Miller and Carlo's returning fully rounding out what could suddenly be a very potent defense in just a span of a couple of weeks. But in the immediate, Boston's defense is much more dynamic than what it was just a few weeks ago, and a lot of that has to do with both Reilly and Grzelcyk now back in the lineup and pushing the pace from the backend.