NHL Notebook: 5 reasons why Bruins could turn this first-round series around

The Bruins might have new life in their best-of-seven series against the Hurricanes, but they still have quite the hole to dig themselves out of after dropping their first two contests down in Carolina. However, after Friday’s encouraging 4-2 victory in Game 3, Boston has good reason to be feeling positive about how their game is trending. Here’s a look at five reasons why the B’s are expressing such positive sentiment ahead of a key Game 4 on Sunday afternoon.

The reunited Bergeron line is paying dividends 

Given the secondary-scoring contributions that the Bruins have received over the last few months, reuniting the Marchand-Bergeron-Pastrnak line was likely only going to be a “Break Glass in Case of Emergency” contingency plan for Bruce Cassidy.

In a perfect situation, the B’s likely wouldn’t need to lean so heavily on their big guns up front — with the B’s finding the necessary scoring equilibrium for an extended stretch with Jake DeBrusk on the top line, David Pastrnak bumped down and Craig Smith/Charlie Coyle anchoring the third line.

Of course, going down 0-2 against a team as stingy as Carolina is far from a perfect situation. And with Marchand and Bergeron (and by extension, Boston’s overall offensive punch) largely corralled by the Canes in those two losses, Cassidy has gone back to basics and brought back arguably the best two-way line in hockey.

And to the surprise of very few, the 63-37-88 trio has been money since earning consistent reps for the first time in months.

Since Cassidy committed to the Marchand-Bergeron-Pastrnak unit near the midway point of Game 2, the top line has logged 12:04 of 5v5 ice time together, with Boston holding the edge in …

Shot attempts: 15-8
Shots on goal: 9-3
Goals scored: 2-0
High-danger scoring chances: 5-1

... during that stretch.

Not only is that line finally giving Boston a tried-and-true avenue to finally land some punches against Carolina at 5v5 play, but it’s also helped a couple of Boston’s big guns finally get into a groove offensively.

Yes, the Bruins are going to need “unsung heroes” like Derek Forbort and other regulars further down on the depth chart to all pull on the same rope to get back in this series … but Boston is also going to need its star players to deliver. And sticking with this configuration on the top line sure seems like a great way to get guys like Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak on a roll.

After his second-period tally on Friday — his first 5v5 goal since April 2 — Marchand was quick to acknowledge that Friday was the “most engaged” he’s felt in quite some time. Boston is certainly hoping that the floodgates will now open for their snakebit star winger. 

“It's playoff hockey in TD Garden. And I think that gets you going, too. It's that time of year, that probably helps them,” Cassidy said of his star players getting going. “Scoring a goal then, now that's the icing on the cake for him to sort of, ‘Okay,  I'm back’ - that type of thing. Because Brad is a confident guy — some would even call him beyond confident. 

“So it's nice to see that back. I don't know if it ever completely left. But it appears that way. It appeared that way for a little while and I only he can answer that. But whatever the case is, we need him to be that confident guy.”

Of course, putting all of your eggs in one basket in regards to that top line could make things a bit easier for Carolina to match up against Boston’s big guns, especially with Jordan Staal’s line likely getting that defensive assignment back down at PNC Arena.

However, the Bruins are hoping that the corresponding lineup reshuffle could help other lines find some traction - with DeBrusk earning some reps with Coyle at 5v5 play on Friday and during Saturday’s practice at TD Garden.

Along with the connection that DeBrusk and Coyle found on that momentum-shifting shorthanded tally on Friday, the Bruins held a 3-1 edge in scoring chances during their limited 3:55 of 5v5 ice time together. 

Getting those two rolling — along with more production from a rather underwhelming Erik Haula line — will be key moving forward. But at the very least, an effective top line should be able to keep Boston in the fight when it comes to generating some steady offense against this tenacious Carolina club.  

"I know the onus this time of the year is on your best players being your best players. We hear that sentiment, we'll hear it — four games tonight? We'll hear it probably from four coaches, whoever is on the winning team,” Cassidy said. “And typically, that's what you need. Not every night, but typically. And tonight, they were.

“If you have a little success on the power play, I've always said it — it bleeds into the rest of your game and vice versa. So they got it going, they're back together again, probably gave them a little comfort knowing the success they've had, so that helps them and it's up to the rest of the group not to fall off.”

Special teams offering signs of hope

That Coyle shorthanded goal on Friday did a whole lot more than just give Boston a much-needed lift at a time when the game could have slipped away from them once again. It set the tone for the rest of the night in a game where Boston controlled special-teams play and finally managed to get the better of an elite Hurricanes PK unit.

“It just changed our whole demeanor,” Marchand said of Coyle’s tally. 

Along with that shorthanded goal (just the fourth that Carolina has given up all year), the Bruins clamped down against a Carolina power play that — much like the B’s — slumped down the final stretch of the regular season (3-for-37). 

Having a blueliner that's willing to eat pucks like Forbort certainly went a long way, but the Bruins’ shorthanded unit did a good job of compressing their defensive structure, keeping skaters outside of Grade-A ice and taking away shooting lanes to power-play cogs such as Tony DeAngelo, Sebastian Aho and Andrei Svechnikov.

Boston will need that stingy PK to continue to frustrate Carolina for the remainder of this series, but a potent power play will also go a long way towards finally alleviating some of the scoring pressure that has plagued Cassidy’s club for significant stretches in this series.

As Corey Sznajder notes below, the Bruins are still elite at converting on their power-play chances (far from a surprise given the personnel on that PP1 unit), but the primary issue continues to be gaining clean entries into the opposition’s zone.  

The thing with Boston's power play is they had a high conversion rate for most of the year but they're pretty bad when they have to enter the zone to get setup. They never lost the zone on either PPG tonight (albeit one was after a 5v3). pic.twitter.com/XcF6rIz5Re

— Corey Sznajder (@ShutdownLine) May 7, 2022

Boston at least managed to counter Carolina’s knack for stacking the blue line by flipping a few pucks behind them and trying to win races to loose pucks, but winning O-zone faceoffs will be crucial if Boston wants to build off of Friday’s strong showing.

Also, having a guy like Pastrnak finally fire home a short-side snipe to get on the board probably goes a long way toward gaining some more confidence.  

“It takes a little bit of time,” Pastrnak said of Boston’s power play settling in. “Some teams put forwards on you and some teams come up with the D to block. So you have to obviously adjust a little bit, which side you're shooting at and I think they're a pretty good penalty kill, but at the same time, our PP wasn't great. So it was getting a little bit in our heads. So I think we were causing our own problems within ourselves — not them making it any harder for us."

Timely stops from Swayman

If there was one critique that Cassidy put forth when it came to Linus Ullmark’s play in Games 1 and 2, it involved the timing of his stops (or lack thereof) in critical moments of a contest. 

Even if the veteran netminder was not the primary culprit responsible for Boston’s lackluster showings down in Raleigh, an extra save or two could have potentially helped Boston forge some of those early storm surges that Carolina has a knack for brewing up.

But on Friday night, the dam didn’t burst with Jeremy Swayman in net — with the rookie netminder turning aside a pair of quality chances from Jesperi Kotkaniemi and Nino Niederreiter less than a minute after Coyle’s shorthanded goal to keep things knotted a 1-1. 

That third-period blemish on a seeing-eye strike from Jaccob Slavin aside, Swayman did his part to keep Boston in the contest, turning aside 25 shots in his first career postseason start.

Add in his scrambling stops on one of the few positive power-play bids for Carolina, and Swayman made the saves he needed to when the visitors came close to shifting momentum back in their favor. 

For all of the talk regarding Swayman’s late-season slump (.877 save percentage over final 10 games), the rookie sure looked like a playoff-ready netminder on Friday, and his teammates sure seemed to get a lift from his timely stops.

“He made some huge saves at timely moments of the game, where it could have changed the outcome,” Marchand said of Swayman. “And he just seemed to be very composed. It's a high-pressure game tonight. We knew the magnitude of the game and he came in and he was prepared. But I think that's what we kind of expected from him. He's had that all year, he has the drive and the will to want to be a great, great player for this team. And I think he was excited for the opportunity. So you gotta give him a lot of credit."

Reinforcements on the blue line holding their own

As expected, Hampus Lindholm will not return for Game 4 after getting walloped by Svechnikov on Wednesday night. However, Cassidy did offer a bit of good news by noting that the top-pairing defenseman was around the Garden during Saturday’s practice, and was watching Game 3 from the ninth floor. 

(Given how it sure seemed like Lindholm was felled by a concussion in Game 2, it's good sign that he was already back in a rocking NHL arena just a few days later).

"He was in there today,” Cassidy said of Lindholm. “He's feeling better. He won't play tomorrow, but he's feeling better. He's here."

With Lindholm still on the shelf, the Bruins will once again turn to Mike Reilly on the left side — a scenario that might have terrified some B’s fans just days prior. 

Reilly might have burst onto the scene following last year’s trade and injected some much-needed puck movement on the back end — but this year has been a bit of a slog at times for the veteran, who has oftentimes found himself on the outside looking in due to some lackluster D-zone results and a knack for stick infractions.

Yes, Reilly may not be able to log 24+ minutes a night like Lindholm. He’s not necessarily a guy that is adept at shoveling bigger bodies outside of Grade-A ice. And he’s not the guy you call on in most situations for a PK shift.

But when the 28-year-old is making proper reads, connecting on first passess and helping orchestrate clean passages through the neutral zone, Reilly can be an effective regular on a solid D corps — especially against a Hurricanes team that does whatever it can to frustrate opponents near the blue line.

On multiple occasions during Friday’s win, Reilly helped negate a potentially fruitful O-zone possession for the Canes by evading forecheckers and feeding the puck out high-danger ice — plays that may not show up on the stat sheet, but can go a long way toward tiltings the scales in your favor against a team like Carolina.  

Lindholm remains a major loss for however long he’s out of the lineup. But if Reilly and other D-men further down the depth chart (Forbort, Connor Clifton) can continue to play to their strengths (and limit the self-inflicted miscues down the other end of the ice), the Bruins do have the personnel in place to withstand the Hurricanes’ pressure.

Fourth line finding a groove?

Some of Boston’s high-profile forwards lit the lamp in Friday’s victory (Marchand, Pastrnak, Hall and Coyle), but if there was any skater that was deserving of a goal, it was Curtis Lazar.

Of course, lighting the lamp isn’t exactly Lazar’s bread and butter (although he’ll take it whenever he can). But the north-south skater helped drive a line that served as a thorn in the side of the Hurricanes all night long.  

Add in Chris Wagner’s insertion into the lineup and the number of checks he delivered, and this fourth line has the makings of a unit that could wear on the Hurricanes’ top-six, especially after a night in which their forechecking efforts led to three Carolina penalties. 

While perhaps you could make the argument that Anton Blidh also deserves a look on the left side, this fourth line should be in good hands so long as Lazar keeps operating at this level as the man down the middle. 

 "Puck possession — I think they drew some penalties," Cassidy said of the fourth line. "They were hard to play against. They're always involved in the kill. Lazar had a shorty opportunity, our kill — we didn't dig any out of our net and I don't know how much Fliggy and Wags contributed in that. They have in the past, but Laser certainly did and we know the other guys can both do it if we get into trouble in that area. So I just liked their overall demeanor and how they approach the game, their physicality, their willingness to take a hit, puck possession, kind of grind the other team down. 

"We anticipated a long series going into this. Coming out of Carolina, that was our game plan to make sure we made it one and last night was a step in that direction."