I hate this. Why screw with the lines? They aren’t struggling to score(outside of scoring first), there has been no consistent combination that has looked bad. And obviously why break up one of the top lines in hockey just because you can? Chemistry is so much more important here than any sport and they have it in spades.Looks like for now Bruce is moving DeBrusk up to the #1 line and putting Pasta down on Krejci's right side.
"On Feb. 10, after missing five games because of a lower-body injury, Jake DeBrusk returned with a thunderclap. DeBrusk let loose with 14 pucks, seven of which struck the net. On Jan. 30, David Krejci assisted on Nick Ritchie’s power-play goal and recorded six shots of his own.
To Bruce Cassidy’s eye, these have been isolated spikes more than game-over-game consistency.
So in Monday’s practice at Warrior Ice Arena, the Bruins coach went to his break-glass-in-case-of-emergency maneuver: He busted up his No. 1 line.
DeBrusk moved to right wing next to Brad Marchand and Patrice Bergeron. David Pastrnak moved down to the No. 2 line with Krejci and Nick Ritchie. The moves, Cassidy hopes, will nudge DeBrusk off his zero-goal output and express a more robust 5-on-5 presence out of Krejci.
“They tend to push whoever’s with them,” Cassidy said of Marchand and Bergeron. “So it could be a good arrangement. Krech has played before with Pasta. So it’s just a little bit of a different look. We’ve talked about doing it in the past. I don’t know. We’ll see how it goes.”
https://theathletic.com/2389965/2021/02/15/boston-bruins-top-line-debrusk-krejci/
Lines would be
Marchand-Bergeron-DeBrusk
Ritchie-Krejci-Pastrnak
Bjork-Coyle-Smith
Frederic-Kuraly-Wagner
But if you have to do it, I would so much rather see Pasta with Coyle and Smith. That line would be so much fun to watch
edit: yes I know Pasta is on the same side as Smith, but if we are going to get crazy let’s go all in