The Bruins' fourth line hasn’t been a constant personnel-wise, and it hasn’t often been a deciding factor for the Black and Gold during games this season.
And it wasn’t a particularly effective group at the end of the road trip out West when the B’s needed all hands on deck, so a strong performance was needed as the team returned home for the first time since before the Christmas holiday.
The good news was that Boston’s reconfigured fourth line of Sean Kuraly, Tanner Jeannot and Mark Kastelic popped in a pair of goals in Thursday night’s 4-1 win over the Calgary Flames at TD Garden. Kuraly scored the first goal of the game on a bar-down sniper shot, and the fourth line was on the ice for Mason Lohrei’s insurance marker in the second period that put Boston up by three goals.
Sean Kuraly goes top shelf to break the ice 🧊 pic.twitter.com/HwGEpcY8Q8
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) January 9, 2026
The win keeps the Bruins two points out of a wild card playoff spot and kicks off an ultra-important five-game homestand where the Bruins need to find consistency with their tight-checking, physical, and grinding style that’s been a little up-and-down over their most recent stretch of hockey.
“Overall, I am very pleased with where we are at right now,” said Marco Sturm. “Sure, there are stretches in games that I would like to have back, but at least at this point now we all know how we have to play, and how we have to defend, special teams, be in transition…whatever it is, we know what we need to do to have success. That’s something that we know as a group.
“Being more consistent, I think that is going to be the next step. The second half of the season everybody knows we are and how we play, so there are no surprises anymore. And your best players have to be your best players every night. Not necessarily on the score sheet, but your best players need to be your best players and be present every night. That is going to be the challenge.”
The score snapped an 11-game goalless streak for Kuraly and showed that a big, physical and heavy fourth line could be an effective way to go for the Bruins. Certainly, that kind of a fourth line also gives the Bruins a little more offensive upside as of those three players has cracked double-digits in points this season and is capable of doing so in the goal-scoring department as well.
Across the board the trio was very strong with Kastelic finishing winning 10-of-11 faceoffs and six shot attempts, Jeannot leading the way with four registered hits and a really crafty banked pass to Kuraly to set up the game’s first goal, and Kuraly clocking in with just his third multi-point game of the season.
Sturm also tinkered with Boston’s top line dropping a scuffling Morgan Geekie in the lineup and adding the speedy, energetic Marat Khusnutdinov with David Pastrnak and Elias Lindholm in a trio that accounted for one of two first-period goals for Boston.
“I think we did the right thing and we balanced the lines a little bit,” said Sturm. “I liked [Khusnutdinov] with David and [Elias Lindholm] to give them a little more speed. Overall, I think we were a little bit deeper, and also our fourth line if you want to call it that, the Kuraly line, they definitely played better than the last few games and that helps.”
Kuraly wasn’t a highly heralded free agent signing on July 1 as a mid-level scoring threat that’s high on intangibles and details to his game, but he’s been a constant in the bottom-6 and a player that’s been a penalty killer and focused, veteran voice that is needed in the Bruins dressing room.
That was apparent when he was asked about how the Bruins can get results on this five-game homestand as opposed to a near-disastrous five-game homestand just prior to Christmas that dropped the B’s into a holiday week losing streak.
“I think as a group we knew that tonight was really important for us,” said Kuraly. “We weren’t happy with how things ended and we felt like we gave away two points in Seattle. And we wanted to get them back tonight [against Calgary]. We had a focus to stay out of the box tonight and I think for the most part we did. We know the recipe going forward, we just need to stick to it. For us the offense is almost second or third to play a good D-zone game. It’s crazy how much our offense comes from just playing a solid defensive game.
“It’s obvious stuff, but sometimes when you get to the middle of the season you can forget those things. But we were reminded, and credit to us that we did it for the most part. We always want to be in a better spot, but we feel like we’re building every day and that’s kind of our goal.”
The Bruins will obviously need their best players to step up as Sturm alluded to in his postgame thoughts, but they’re also going to need the kind of spread scoring they saw on Thursday night, with three of the four B’s forward lines getting a goal and the back-end accounting for one as well.
And one of those goal-scorers was named Pastrnak and Geekie, which hasn’t always been the case this season for a Bruins group that’s relied heavily on those two players. Clearly, things need to be kept in perspective as the B’s were facing a less-than-stellar Calgary team playing on the second night of back-to-backs, but the Bruins themselves were in the first game back after more than two weeks away from home ice.
It was a good first step on an extremely important five-game homestand for the B’s that could go a long way toward determining what the expectations are going to be for the second half of the regular season.