Bruce Cassidy and the Bruins have had no issues with their top pairing of Hampus Lindholm and Charlie McAvoy, to say the least.
Even though a lower-body injury limited Lindholm to just 10 games with his new club over the final six weeks of the regular season, the B’s deadline pickup gelled immediately with Boston’s franchise blueliner in McAvoy, giving Boston a stout D duo capable of shutting down top-six lines, pushing the puck through the neutral zone and injecting offense down the other end of the ice.
In the 131:22 of 5v5 ice time that the Lindholm-McAvoy pair logged down the stretch, Boston tilted the ice firmly in its favor, outscoring the opposition, 12-3, and holding a 107-58 edge in shots on goal.
So why then, in a series against a team that swarms in waves on the forecheck in Carolina, are the Bruins set to split this duo up for Wednesday’s Game 2 rematch down in Raleigh?
It has a lot more to do with personnel further down on the depth chart, to say the least.
In a Game 1 loss in which Carolina seemed to pounce on every single miscue that Boston made, Matt Grzelcyk’s ill-timed pinch in the third period stood as the back-breaker — leading to a 2-on-1 tally from Teuvo Teräväinen just minutes after Boston managed to cut its deficit in half.
Top-shelf Teuvo 🥵️ pic.twitter.com/kC27Jsbq71
— Carolina Hurricanes (@Canes) May 3, 2022
It was far from a sterling night from Boston’s second pairing of Grzelcyk and Brandon Carlo, with the former laboring at times against Carolina’s propensity to pressure puck carriers all over the sheet.
Adjustments needed to be made. Thankfully, a quick switcheroo is available to the Bruins, given the chemistry that McAvoy and Grzelcyk have brewed up over the years together both at BU and up in the NHL ranks.
Even though Cassidy noted that Boston could turn to that Lindholm-McAvoy configuration at various points during Wednesday’s game, the B’s will start things off with Grzelcyk back up on the top pairing and Lindholm bumped down next to Carlo.
"I just thought Grizz and Carlo had a bit of a challenging night,” Cassidy explained. “So we talked about using Lindholm with Carlo at times as well. So it also allows you then to in-game, put Lindholm and McAvoy together, maybe after they've sat a shift with Forbort and Clifton going over, so you can still keep them as a pair.
“So it might up Lindy's minutes a little bit in certain situations. It's that time of year, he looks healthy. So there's a little bit of that involved, so to go back to the other pair — he can play with both. And that's it. Grizz has played a lot of hockey with McAvoy, they're a good pair, so no concerns there for me of that kind of chemistry.”
When it comes to limiting the risk of another laborious performance from Grzelcyk, sticking him with McAvoy sure seems like a prudent safeguard, given the sterling returns that the former Terriers have put forth over an extended sample size.
Since the 2019-20 season, the Grzelcyk-McAvoy pairing has logged 958:07 of 5v5 ice time together. And during that stretch, Boston holds commanding advantages in …
Shot attempts: 1,070-663
Shots on goal: 647-345
Goals scored: 58-26
Scoring chances: 518-312
High-danger scoring chances: 201-114
Charlie McAvoy and Matt Grzelcyk are still very fun to watch on the offensive blue line:pic.twitter.com/KqKM16I1eb
— Conor Ryan (@ConorRyan_93) January 21, 2022
Pretty good.
Not only would reuniting Grzelcyk and McAvoy potentially elevate Grzelcyk’s game, but Carlo could also stand to benefit from having a player of Lindholm’s caliber as his regular partner — especially when it comes to handling the puck and deferring to the Swede when it comes to breaking the puck out.
“He is excellent on the breakout like Charlie is,” Cassidy said of Lindholm. “So now you've got one on each pair that can be a one-man breakout as opposed to loading them up. As I said, in-game, you can still … maybe use Lindholm and McAvoy if it’s an offensive draw and or a key defensive draw where you need a breakout, etc. So that's the reasoning and it's just a little different look for the matchups as well.”
Had Lindholm avoided injury last month, Boston would have likely preferred to give Lindholm-Carlo an extended look in order to see if the proper equilibrium could be achieved in the B’s top-four unit.
In limited minutes, the returns for Lindholm-Carlo have been underwhelming — with Boston outscored, 2-0, in their 20:25 of 5v5 ice time despite having over 71% of their faceoffs in the offensive zone.
Boston is hoping those poor results are just a matter of inconsistent reps and the growing pains that tend to come with teammates developing chemistry. Because a foe like Carolina is not exactly the type of matchup you want to deal with if your defensive duo is out of sorts.
"Obviously, we haven't had many games or shifts together, necessarily,” Carlo said of playing with Lindholm. “But from watching him along the bench, and then just over the past couple of years, he's a guy that I have a lot of respect for and his game. So I feel like I'm pretty familiar with the way that he plays the game from watching him.
“I think the biggest thing for us will be communication and just using our big bodies and our long sticks to keep things to the outside tomorrow and go from there and just continue to build chemistry. But he's a great player and those kinds of players are fun to play with, because he'll help make the game easier in some regards. And I hope to do the same for him."
Ullmark gets start for Game 2
Boston might be ready to shuffle up its D corps, but Cassidy is not ready to make a switch in net for Game 2. Even though Linus Ullmark was far from sublime in Game 1, Cassidy agreed that Boston’s primary woes on Monday had little to do with their netminding.
"He had a great run here coming into the playoffs, and we're not going to judge him on one game,” Cassidy said of Ullmark. “First playoff game, there's a bunch of different things that go into that. But at the end of the day, he's going back in and hopefully he's a better goaltender. That's how it works this time of year, right? That's a big part of the game, and he'll get his chance."
Starting strong a point of emphasis for Boston
After failing to generate plenty of quality looks against Antti Raanta despite firing 36 shots on net in Game 1, the Bruins took steps to simplify their offensive strategy on Tuesday — starting practice with drills that involved tipping shots from the point.
Along with lurking for deflections and crowding the net in an effort for second-chance opportunities, Cassidy stressed the need for Boston to land punches early against Carolina — a team that is often at its best when it’s protecting a lead.
In four head-to-head matchups with Carolina so far this season, the Bruins have held a lead for precisely … 0:00.
"We got to get two or three goals, at least.Wwe haven't scored enough against this team,” Cassidy said. “We can talk about defending all we want — there's two sides to it. But we've got to finish early tomorrow. That would be our, if we could have it, in a perfect world, we'd finish early. Let's get a lead. See how that goes for us. We haven't had a lead against this hockey club. So finish one of those ones early. How do we do that? Bear down a little bit more.”
Stats and graphs via Natural Stat Trick, HockeyViz and JFreshHockey.