What lineup changes should Bruins consider for Game 3 vs. Panthers? originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston
The Boston Bruins gave one of their worst performances of the season in Game 2 of their first-round playoff series against the Florida Panthers on Wednesday night, and they paid for it.
A 6-3 victory for the Panthers, including a third period that saw Florida score four unanswered goals, has evened the series 1-1 heading to FLA Live Arena for the next two games.
Bruins head coach Jim Montgomery said after the game that he’s considering changes “everywhere.”
Montgomery calls out Bruins’ ‘catastrophic’ mistakes in Game 2 loss
Which areas of the lineup could be shaken up to produce better results this weekend? Here are a couple changes Montgomery could consider.
Grzelcyk has been a healthy scratch the first two games. Derek Forbort has played on the left side of the third pairing. Forbort played decent in Game 1, but he was far less effective Wednesday night. The Bruins are a minus-11 in shot attempts, a minus-8 in shots on net and a minus-3 in scoring chances during Forbort’s 26:31 of 5-on-5 ice time this series, per Natural Stat Trick.
Grzelcyk is good at breaking out of the defensive zone with hard, clean passes up ice to ignite the transition game. He plays with speed and is an excellent skater. These are traits that can help evade a strong forecheck and help the Bruins not get pinned in their defensive zone for long stretches.
There are concerns about Grzelcyk’s ability to withstand the physicality of the playoffs, and the Panthers would likely target him in that regard should he enter the lineup. But the Bruins need to play with more pace and Grzelcyk would certainly help that.
Even though Forbort is one of the Bruins’ best penalty killers, they’ve shown an impressive ability to be successful in that area without him. The PK had a 90 percent success rate when he missed the last 15 games of the regular season due to injury.
The Bruins could put Grzelcyk on the third pair with Connor Clifton or move him up to the first pairing alongside Charlie McAvoy. The Grzelcyk-McAvoy duo has tremendous chemistry and has been one of the league’s most effective pairings at driving puck possession and scoring chances over the last two years. In that scenario, Dmitry Orlov would slide down to the third pairing next to Clifton.
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Matt Grzelcyk
Switch up the top-six centers?
David Krejci has not been much of a factor through two games. His only scoring contribution is a secondary assist on David Pastrnak’s power-play goal early in Game 1. He also has just one shot and one scoring chance in 28:40 of 5-on-5 ice time.
His line with Tyler Bertuzzi and Pastrnak has been outplayed in a major way so far. The Panthers are a plus-17 in shot attempts, a plus-15 in shots on net and a plus-8 in scoring chances during the 21:46 of 5-on-5 time the Bertuzzi-Krejci-Pastrnak line has played. The Bruins cannot have the ice tilted against them to that degree and not make a change.
Moving Krejci up to the first line and Zacha down to the second line is one change to consider. Zacha has strong chemistry with Krejci.
Patrice Bergeron coming back would solve some of these issues, too. His return would allow Zacha to go back to second-line left wing and likely result in Bertuzzi going to the third line with Taylor Hall and Charlie Coyle.
Regardless of Bergeron’s status, something needs to change at center. The Panthers dominated the matchup down the middle in Game 2, and Sam Bennett’s return was a major reason why.
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Could Jakob Lauko make a difference?
Lauko played well at the end of the season. He played with physicality and picked up a few assists over the final six games. But there’s really no need to take Nick Foligno or Trent Frederic out of the lineup. Foligno picked up an assist in Game 2 and actually skated pretty well despite missing the last 22 games of the regular season. Frederic hasn’t made much of an impact offensively (zero points, four shots) but he’s coming off a regular season in which he set career highs with 16 goals and 14 assists. He’s a more skilled player than Lauko and shouldn’t come out of the lineup yet.
What about a goalie switch?
I wrote about this in-depth here, but the bottom line is replacing Linus Ullmark with Jeremy Swayman would be a panic move. Ullmark is likely going to win the Vezina Trophy and was the league’s best goalie this season. He was their best player in the Game 1 win and wasn’t one of the three biggest problems for Boston in the Game 2 loss. Ullmark’s road stats also are much better than Swayman’s this season. Unless an injury is hampering Ullmark, and that doesn’t appear to be the case based on his movement over the first two games, then there’s no reason to bench him.
