The good news? The Bruins have received plenty of scoring punch out of the gate from their fourth line.
The high-motor trio of
Mark Kastelic,
Johnny Beecher, and
Cole Koepke has combined for 13 pointsthrough four games.
The bad news? That checking unit is just about the only segment of the forward corps landing punches on the scoresheet, especially at five-on-five play.
After the fourth line, the team’s top five-on-five scorer is … defenseman
Brandon Carlo (3 points).
The top line of
David Pastrnak,
Pavel Zacha, and
Elias Lindholm has combined for just 5 five-on-five points; the top-six grouping of
Brad Marchand,
Charlie Coyle, and
Morgan Geekie has zero five-on-five points.
Reshuffling lines has usually been coach
Jim Montgomery’s first contingency plan when scoring wanes — as evidenced by bumping Coyle and Geekie down to the third line with
Trent Frederic during
Monday’s loss to the Panthers.
But on Tuesday, Montgomery stressed that no lineup tinkering will remedy the current woes if the overall compete level carries over from Monday’s showing.
“Right now, it’s the effort level, the consistency of our effort level — over chemistry — that is hurting,” Montgomery said. “And then that really affects execution.”
Montgomery’s sentiment also applies to a power play that has done little to prop up an imbalanced offense so far.
The Bruins have cashed in only twice on 18 power-play opportunities (11.1 percent) while relinquishing a pair of shorthanded goals
to Florida’s Sam Reinhart.
The power play has struggled when it comes to even generating quality chances. Over 31:20 of man-advantage time, the Bruins have created only eight high-danger scoring chances (per NaturalStatTrick), while relinquishing four down the other end of the ice.
There have been encouraging sequences at times, such as Lindholm ferrying the puck across the slot from the bumper position or
Charlie McAvoy lighting the lamp off a sharp wrister from the high slot.
But they have been few and far between, and the inability to generate sustained O-zone time while up a skater is limiting how many chances stars like Pastrnak and Marchand can generate.
“We’ve got to be a little stronger in battles,” Marchand said. “We need to outnumber teams. Sometimes you simplify. You have to outnumber the kill in the battles and come up with pucks. We haven’t come up with them enough.”
Despite relying on their fourth line for most of the heavy lifting, the Bruins still rank eighth in the NHL in goals per game (3.75). Pastrnak believes it’s only a matter of time until the rest of the forwards start pulling on the rope.
“The only frustration is probably that we know we are a much better team than we showed so far,” Pastrnak said. “So that’s definitely frustrating, because we know we can do much better.
“I would say healthy frustration, just because we know we can be much better than what we showed.”
