Bruins need THIS to Fix Their Forward Lines

Bruins need THIS to Fix Their Forward Lines

can you start a podcast with me please i need something to [Music] do send it out in front of the score elias launched to the heavens here’s a chance right in a goal he scores oh my what a move by the rookie twoon one poster not moving in with Marsha get it to it score the zone boil dances in back and scores hall right wing corner pastnog is there he scores david post wins it for Boston welcome in everyone to another episode of Bruins tape to tape i am your host this evening Caroline it is April 30th if you’re listening to this uh yes the Bruins are still not in the playoffs but we are still getting together and talking hockey and what better way to kick off our summer season so to speak the first episode without any active brewing news than having a special guest so but first and foremost I want to welcome in my fabulous co-host Maria how’s it going Maria oh just grand just grand i’m actually you know I mean I mean that sincerely it’s kind of It’s kind of refreshing to sit back and uh watch a little bit of playoff really good playoff hockey um even though we don’t have a dog in the fight there’s been some uh pretty epic battles thus far it is i am very highly entertained it’s been an excellent first round but as I mentioned for those of you who are not watching on YouTube uh we’ve brought in uh Professor Mo uh friend of the pod to come on and educate us a little bit so if you have been following our Substack account we’ve got a special little corner dedicated to uh Mo and his wisdom around all things hockey so what better way to get ready for next season than to enlighten us ourselves and our fans um of what a good team is actually supposed to look like uh so welcome in Mo how is it going thank you guys it’s great i appreciate you guys having me on again we always love having you and your your articles have been uh really really good really thoughtprovoking and entertaining good yeah glad that’s been been working out but they’ve been fun to write for sure yeah highly uh enlightening i mean certainly I think you know among the three of us we’ve been fans of the game for a really long time but at least for myself there have been elements that I have learned a lot about uh that I didn’t know beforehand you know we talk a lot on this podcast about or at least I certainly talk about it all the time that uh you know the Boston Bruins it’s it’s a team but it’s also like a workplace right and everybody has a job and and uh it could be you have to be the goal scorer you have to be the playmaker you have to be the Uncle Nick kind of player but besides the personalities that you need to have on a team to be successful there are also actual jobs that have to get taken care of during a game um and Mo’s first article is already out on uh Substack so you should definitely go check it out it’s uh tapem.substack.com you can read that it’s the um forwards philosophy and he’s going to be uh putting out some more interesting content around this later this summer so make sure you subscribe so you get that into your inbox so you can get even more detail but before we dive in Maria what has been happening around the ring has there been any big news that we might find interesting hot off the presses just before we started recording is that uh Aaron Ecklad has been suspended two games by the Department of Player Safety and in case folks haven’t been paying attention to the Lightning Panthers series the Florida Panthers are playing like their typical rat rats that they are yes they are right and so Vlad went after Hegel because Hegel knocked one of their guys out which I again I don’t have an issue with that right if you do it cleanly now right the the first hit that Eblad laid on Hegel should have been enough but then Hegel Eblad doubles down and basically delivers like an elbow to Hegel’s chin hegel left the game didn’t come back john Cooper lost his EV1 mind well he should have because they didn’t even call a damn penalty on the play it was It was so egregious so egregious so um you know what it’s It’s about time and you know and I know I had said that I had adopted them as my playoff team but I even I last night had reached the end of my rope with some of the [ __ ] shenanigans that they’re pulling and then the tip for tat between Paul Maurice and John Cooper we only hit guys that have the puck as [ __ ] okay right it was highly entertaining i have to say it was starting to feel like inception how many times are we going back and forth here like all right oh my god okay how many times are we gonna play this pickle ball game but anyways that that was the big news that hit um right before we started recording the other two pieces of news as we all um expected is that coaches are starting to be relieved of their duties or moving on however they want to phrase it but uh Mike Sullivan has parted ways with the Pittsburgh Penguins and Rick Tucket has also parted ways with the Vancouver Conucks so y um I’ve started hearing that the Rangers might be interested in Mike Sullivan which is fine by me because I have a philosophical issue with having any players coaches that are related to each other and for those of you who don’t know Mike Sullivan is Charlie Makavoy’s father-in-law no thank you yeah no thank you do we even have a lot of recycle coaches again though no i We talked about that on our Discord i’m over it Mo aren’t you i mean i just like the message will be fresh and new right likely for a period of time perhaps and then we might find ourselves in the same boat again where we’re getting rid of a coach two three I don’t know i don’t even know if they last that long anymore in the Bruins organization but what’s what’s the shelf life should I call Charlie and ask him what the shelf life of coach is moving forward well four coaches in 15 years is about five years a coachish right so well according to Charlie though you can’t count Bruce Cassidy apparently not no that doesn’t count i don’t know what that was then five years of Christ what are we doing here i don’t even know anymore um but and for those of you who aren’t watching playoff hockey you got to watch playoff hockey cuz I tell you those teams in the West whoever comes out of the Western Conference going into the next round they’re going to have scars all over them because those teams are doing some serious battle against each other and earlier in the week like every series was tied two to two yep yep so that means ultimately in the West nobody is going to get through past the first round without six games without six games which is a lot and and quite frankly a lot of these matchups have been so balanced that I wouldn’t be surprised if we see more two or more game sevens which you really I mean this is completely an uneducated guess but from my experience of watching like Yeah game sevens aren’t unusual but they’re not common like it’s not you don’t have multiple game sevens in at this level in round you have a lot of great games you have a lot of overtime but you know this is every series in the West could go seven they honestly could you know they honestly could meanwhile on on the East Coast everyone’s going into overtime so I don’t know what that means i don’t need everyone’s playing probably at the end everyone will have played the same number of minutes it’s just whether or not it was in regulation or not quite frankly cuz well the speculation I’ve heard from the so-called expert is that um whoever comes out of the Dallas Colorado series should be the ones in the Western Conference Finals and going to the Stanley Cup so we’ll see i mean how much they’ll have left by the time they get done with each other but um who’s still physically standing that’s the thing you never know right they could be an excellent team they could be the best team but if McKinnon goes down if Sean is done if Otter is done then it’s We saw that with Boston when Pasta got hurt the first shift against Florida yeah yeah sorry sorry yep mhm mo are you here to help us or hurt us definitely hurt i’m going to make you guys feel a lot worse oh yeah yeah i think I think Yeah yeah yeah gi given some of our subject matter here we’re going to find out how really bad the Bruins lines were here but we got rid of Freddy so I’m happy yes so that was your mission and I’m glad and I was right there i was right there rooting on I Yep rooting on with you because uh yeah he I I fell out of like with him um in a relative quick hurry yep yep yep so let’s talk then about the philosophy of forward lines um before we kind of dive into exactly what you believe every single line construction should be what their jobs are um where did you kind of come up with this philosophy and these ideas so a lot of this philosophy just comes from watching hockey for the last 30 35 years um and also yeah I hate to say it but but playing video games has also kind of helped um because video games always said your top two lines are your scoring lines and your bottom two lines are your checking lines um and so I just kind of always had that philosophy just kind of ingrained in me growing up it always seemed you know like the the Joe Thornton that jumbo line was always the top line the scoring line they didn’t really play much defense and then you got to you know the 2011 Stanley Cup and you had basically the the best most perfect fourth line ever um so it’s just everybody you know like you said Caroline everybody has a job to play everybody slots in in a perfect world on a perfect team and it’s just one of those things where this this basic principle of like line construction and team construction just always comes back to the basics of these are what your guys should do this is who should do what your guys should play the penalty kill or the power play or whoever it is but if you can formulate four really good four lines they’ll stack up against anybody else and in the playoffs that’s how you get mismatches and that’s how you win so yeah awesome so let’s talk about your first line so we’re we’re going to start out initially talking more again philosophically a little bit theoretically but we definitely want to then hear who in the past what Bruins teams you talk about the 2011 uh team being so well constructed give us some examples too as you walk us through what this perfect line looks like uh in in the Mover verse the Mo NHL 25 so no it’s so your top line in my opinion is is obviously going to be at least your best players it it needs at least a sniper and in my mind a sniper is someone like Posternok he’s someone that his job is to score goals his job isn’t to play defense it’s not really to play neutral zone or penalty kill he’s there to get you 50 goals a year and and that’s all he does i know Pasta’s knock is you know he doesn’t play defense and this stuff but that’s your typical sniper i was just thinking that he’s been and again it he he gets [ __ ] on in Boston sports talk radio for that which is you know again I I I try not to pay it any attention but it infuriates me nonetheless because it’s more it’s just fodder to rile up it really is but you you you are the same buffoons who’ve been saying for years the Bruins need a sniper they have one and then you crap all over him because you expect him to be something that right it it’s it’s not a regular part of his game if if he if he grows into that aspect of his game good for him good for him but we want him to put the frigin puck in the net right yep so you definitely want those guys and then it it’s going to have to be players that complement that person’s playing ability um so typically it’s it’s going to be your guys that will get in the zone get on pucks forch check hard but force turnovers and capitalize on those turnovers so again if you’re looking at you know the 2011 Bruins team um I mean your top line when they were healthy you had Luch Cretchie um and and Horton right those are three guys so you’ve got Luch who’s going to get in there and just who was the truck driver that was in a path for those guys seriously yeah cretchie who’s probably your second man in getting the puck dishing it to Horton or whoever i mean Peverly was on that top line in the playoffs and we all know Rich Peverly was kind of crappy but he played right so if you have he was a good college player oh like Brown’s a good AHL player sorry but you need those guys and so if if you can and and again if you look at like the Joe Thornton Mike Canubal Glenn Murray line none of them were great but they played well together and they complemented each other so perfectly that no one wanted to play him what were they Maria like the 800 lb gorilla line or something if I remember it was it was awesome like Murray had Yeah thornton had like a 100 assists and Murray had like 50 goals and it was perfect uh hence why those guys nearly you know ripped ripped Michael Connell to shreds when they found out that they had basically escorted Joe Thornton out the back door without even having a conversation with them but I digress yeah well that’s that’s another episode right yeah so we’re have old gripes episode this summer yeah yeah can we do one of those so in my mind and I know we’ll get to it later but your top line is your best players your your snipers if if you got a Berseron who can play defense fine but I don’t think he technically has to you know that line has to be there but they got to be snipers and they got to be your your top power play guys those they have to be there because I mean that’s that’s how you win is if you put the puck in the net and these guys have to be it yeah so if you guys want to talk you want to talk who on this team maybe we’ll get there i was gonna get there i was gonna get there so talk us through your Do we in your mind do we currently have a top line that fits the descriptors as you have just laid them out for us i would say twothirds of the top line i was thinking was like “Yeah I can name them for you right now.” But well um so Caroline do you want to get into this specifics or move on to the second line well let’s talk about the whole uh package and then see just how far short we land so our second So tell us a little about your philosophy then what’s the purpose of the second line so your first line consider it like your elite scoring unit right their their job is to score so your second line is kind of to do both right score but also go against the other team’s top two lines and shut them down so again if you think you had Marshian Berseron and whoever else kind of played with those guys uh 2011 they had Reky right reky was 40 years old and could barely skate but he played with Marian and Berseron and they were perfect um so you want some consistent offense um obviously these guys are your top six so they need to put the puck in the net but again if your top line is doing that these guys go against the other team’s top line and and shuts them down they’re the guys that will you know kind of grind out the defenseman on the back end of the other team you know kind of make them tired um that’s that’s always one thing that kind of gets overlooked is is kind of leaning on the other team’s defense especially in the playoffs that’s that’s a great way to you know win a series steal a series is I mean that’s what Florida does to Boston all the time they forche all the time and and put pressure on the defense and make them tired out of you yeah they just they’re relentless yeah and and the way I like to look at it is kind of compare it to baseball where you’ve got like a fiveman starting pitching rotation you don’t want all pitchers that are the same you want a little bit of difference of you know people coming at you so if you’ve got the top line that’s just coming coming and coming maybe your second line is going to be you know your neutral zone speed guys that will you know do the do the transition game or uh be a little bit more skilled and a little bit more forch check so again this is going to be like your bers are on Marshian Reky um those types of players that you know play a little bit more defensive minded but definitely are offensive threats and then that was going to be my my question was these it sounds like then this particular line is a little bit more defensively minded their play takes place in multiple zones and then I appreciate the example of someone like Marshand because it really kind of solidifies in my mind when it comes to you know skill and ability top six they’re all excellent players they’re all relatively on par in terms of the best at what they do but when you want to compare someone like a David Posterno at least prior to this season I would say Pasta or Alexander Ovuchetkin is this type of player I kind of think where they go to their place and you know score their goal right so prior to the season Pasta effectively only really ever unless he got like a fantastic breakaway he really went to like his office and he stood there and waited for the pass to snipe that goal right yep ovuchkin like that’s the kind of player that he is right he goes to his spot and he scores his goals whereas if you think about someone like um Bre Marian or even I saw this a lot with Morgan Geeki this year really knowing how to either evade people to get to a place to receive a good pass or to make that critical pass like get it in but also figure out how to stop the opposing team before it becomes really the defenseman’s problem yep yep and I would say you know players like ani Kopitar probably is like a perfect center line uh second line center would be that type of player who plays that 200 foot game um not necessarily sexy on the scoreboard but definitely plays a game where he affects a game off the score sheet um that’s kind of my hope for like Apatra is is to get to that that point i I would say you know if this team was better Geeki would be a perfect second line winger or center and if Zaka could score again it would be a good second line so um but we all know Zaka can’t score so we he doesn’t just you know we’re we’re putting we’re putting um trying to put round pegs into you know square square i mean this is you know what what you’re talking about is build building a team right based on what the specific players skill level is at where right we we seem to have a management group that is forcing not forcing but they’re not putting players in the right positions for success to succeed or for the for the overall good of the team to be successful and themselves and like the player themselves right certainly we saw I think I think an exception in Jake De Brrisque when he was put in a position that demanded more of him and he needed that apparently right and that worked out really really well for two years yep but then you have a situation like with Charlie Coyle who was always a very reliable thirdline center and they had no choice but to call upon him to serve as a center uh either in the first or the second line and he had flashes of when he could do it but he just didn’t have what it took and doesn’t have what it takes to consistently be in those two positions you could fill in you know but he couldn’t maintain that that was that wasn’t his role and to and to point when you look at you know what is distinguishing the criteria of you know those that are your first line those that are your second line and and we’ll get to the other lines is that you know in in in any walk of life you’ve you’ve got to put people in the roles that you know that they are capable of handling where they can garner success and in you know in defensive players i highly doubt that you know if the coach comes to you and says you know hey Joe Blow you’re playing up on the top line tonight even though you’re a third line player what are you going to say no no no i’m not comfortable i’m not comfortable doing that or or vice versa right they they want to play right and they want to do what’s right for the team because they’re team players but yeah and I Exactly i I I do so before we dive into the second half of Before we dive into the second half of the lines let’s just take a super quick word from our sponsor all right Bruins fans if you’re thinking about picking up some new gear now’s the time i’m already planning to grab a fresh Posternok jersey this fall who knows maybe he’s rocking a new letter on the front the NHL shop is running tons of season ending and summer sales right now including 20% off fanatics gear and here’s the best part when you shop through our link in the show notes a portion of your purchases helps support this podcast same gear you’d find at the Pro Shop but with way better perks so stock up save big and help keep Bruins tape to tape rolling all year long the NBA 82 game grind is done and now the real fun begins the NBA playoffs are here and it’s time for all the highstakes drama clutch moments and jaw-dropping plays i can’t wait if you’re 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responsible gaming resources see dk&ng.co/ftball nfl Plus premium offer available only to new and former NFL Plus subscribers additional NFL Plus premium terms at NFL.com/terms all right so welcome back in we’re halfway through our forward line philosophy uh so Mo we’ve talked about our top six we’ve heard that phrase time and time again top six obviously these are some of your best players the most skilled but we’ve already started to see with the second line that some of the responsibility is slowly shifting away from pure offensive power into more of a multi- you know versatile role yes role so where does that put the third line in today’s game because I want to also hear from Maria your take on how maybe some of this has changed because even from what you know Bo and I are the same age so we watched the trap era and dead hockey uh which was a little bit had some similarities to to the big bad ruins of your but let’s talk about today what is the third line today yeah so I for me this one all depends on the coach’s philosophy and there’s probably a couple different routes that you can take in my mind this is basically going to be my workhorse line so this is where a guy like Charlie Coyle is perfect this is the line that I want to basically grind the other team down and basically just just own the game and and make make them have the momentum so basically what this is is is this is kind of referred to as the shutdown line right so they’re going to be the guys that probably are a little bit more defensively minded than your second line but um they they still have to be able to score so if you look back at 2011 a guy like Michael Ryder was was kind of a perfect thirdline guy um he had that wicked wrist shot where he could almost score from anywhere but he was also pretty underrated defensively where Maria Caroline you guys probably remember in the playoffs when he basically like played as Tim Thomas and make that made that save against Montreal so it’s it’s Yeah so yeah and he actually scored a he scored a game-winning goal as in that very same series to your point so um so so also I think you could always also use this line as as kind of like a developmental line uh for maybe some rookies so if you’re going to look at a guy like uh like Lysel maybe this is a better line cuz not really fourth line cuz they’re really going to get what 8 10 minutes a game these guys are probably 12 13 14 minutes a game so a little bit less responsibility probably not going to play against the top line maybe the second the third the fourth line but definitely a line where people can develop but I I I think it’s it’s it’s going to depend on on what the coach’s philosophy is and how good the team wants to be right i mean you look at Florida you got Marine on the third line i mean Marian’s not a third line winger but that’s where he plays because yeah and Paul Maurice’s philosophy to to the this conversation is his philosophy with regard to that line Marand and I forget who else is on the line with him but if they can score one goal per series and this these are Paul Maurice’s words they can score one goal per series then they’re doing their job then they’re doing their job in addition to making life miserable because Yep right when you’re on the road you you don’t get the last change and so you need a third line grouping like that for from a coach’s standpoint where you don’t get that opportunity to you know get your top guys against the other team’s top guys right so you’ve got to have that faith in that grinder that grinder line or that defense you know guys that are defensively responsible that have a good chance of winning a faceoff particularly if the faceoff is in your own end yep yep and that’s where guys like Coyle were great um in in 2011 you had Kelly who was a great thirdline center who won the faceoffs did did the grinding was a penalty kill specialist i mean he was what you wanted um so it’s it and it all depends where where your team’s at i you know use them for a developmental line you could use Lysell and a couple other guys on that line but for me it’s it’s got to be probably one of your better skating lines as well people that can can keep up and I mean like the other team’s face right right and how how much does this line in particular maybe get not necessarily changed up in terms of personnel but changed in how they’re used and how often they’re used based on the opposing team and potential that happen there is this one that could the amount of time fluctuate to some degree or is it is it less about any of that and it’s just that’s just your particular job and you go out when you we need you for that particular purpose yeah i know it’s a good question and it it probably depends on probably a bunch of different factors but the way I see it is this line’s probably also going to have more of your like penalty kill specialists so if if your game is getting and you Yeah so these are probably you know in a less than perfect world you don’t have Bersron or Marshian who’s going to kill penalties well you’ve got these guys right that are your Chris Kelly’s or you know whoever else we’ve got um that I can’t think of but uh you know maybe in a perfect world you know Johnny Beecher becomes a third line guy if he can developed um you know he plays wins the face off he could do penalty kill um you know maybe they’re your second power play unit depending um wasn’t Mark Castella killing some penalties too before he had all of those and so believe it was yeah and I mean we’ll get into the fourth line but I think this line your third and fourth lines like your top two lines you want them to kind of play off of each other and again it’s it’s going to determine what style of play that line ultimately plays right you’ve got dump and chase you’ve got cycle you’ve got the low to high game you’ve got you know the the neutral zone transition so it really depends who the players are and and what that coach’s philosophy is i mean if if you go back to Monty his whole thing was getting the defense activated and that’s why they were so good that first year because no one saw it coming and no one knew how to defend it then everybody knew what they were going to do and they could stop it and the Bruins stop and they no longer slower berseron and Gree a double whammy minor details minor details right right right so I I I I think again it’s like the the starting pitching kind of comparison is is you don’t always want this all four lines to play the same and you don’t want your bottom six to always play the same cuz then the other team can adjust and they know what’s coming and they know how to beat the forch check or or what they’re playing so if you know this line still definitely has to score so you just can’t put a whole bunch of rookies or a whole bunch of grinders out there which is why a guy like Ryder and Kelly kind of worked cuz they could do both um so if you want we can get into the fourth line because it kind of segus into it right and and I mean for me and Maria I don’t know if you know what what you think cuz you’ve kind of seen like the big bad Bruins but this is your energy your physicality line this is the line that basically goes out there and kicks the other team’s ass right i mean the important thing is I had never seen in all my years of watching hockey um you know and and the game obviously has changed and evolved right there there there weren’t you know aalinics and specialists and you know you had your guys on the bench you had you know one two three four lines and that’s how your coaches for the most part rolled them out um and you know to some degree I don’t want to say the game was it it it wasn’t as strategic And that’s no disrespect to what was happening back in those days right but man that low line was forcers i had never seen anything like that even in the days of the Big Bad Bruins because not only not only did those guys kick ass which the big bad Bruins did but they could also when needed be counted on to score a goal not only did they grind down the opposing team and you know their their role was don’t get scored on really i mean short of that don’t get Yeah they they were they were brutal to play against which was um a a thing of beauty to watch back then they were all very well I guess Thornton wasn’t fast but I mean Pa and Campbell were fast they were fearless i mean didn’t Campbell break a leg and stay out there blocking shots yes he did he penalty kill a penalty kill on one leg and I was in the building for that game and the entire building was on their feet because we all knew something awful had happened yeah to him but the fact that he stayed out there on one freaking leg basically and kept blocking shots so um just perfect i you know that’s that and again you know you can’t rewind the clock right but when you’re looking at somewhat of a blueprint and a philosophical approach to how you want to build you know a sequence or a series of lines to me that fourth line that is a blueprint that I think a lot of other teams have picked up on and tried to replicate and duplicate and and develop and mirror I’d agree and didn’t Marian start as a fourthline winger he did yeah i mean a lot of them will as well right they’re going to as a way to develop them as a way to check like see what what do they have see what you got right because ultim honestly you know and again no disrespect but your fourth line is likely not going to be seeing the same amount of ice time as your first and second lines in theory right and so you know it will give you a glimpse in a window is you know can we trust these guys in the situation that we’re putting them in as a fourth line can we trust them can we trust this player to make the right decision with with the puck yeah and so actually one thing that you guys have brought up a few times and I just want to make sure that we touch on for again some of our newer listeners or you know newer fans to hockey because this year has seen such an explosion in hockey fandom you know when we’re talking about these different lines um first of all the the minutes that get played right so when when you have your top lines they’re typically going to be seeing what 20 23 minutes maybe 25 if they’re I mean I think you want to keep them you know under the ideally cuz if not you’re going to wear them out right right right they’re out there for their regular shift they’re out on penalty on power play right but you know on average and again I’m I’m just guessing i don’t have 23 minutes about 20 minutes 20 minutes I think is Yeah yeah is And then So for your second line it might then end up being probably closer to what like 18 minutes 18ish and then you you then start to see a little bit of a drop off because I think I would expect a third liner to be getting somewhere maybe around 14ish minutes and then like you said a fourth line is actually going to be seeing the least amount of ice time like significantly less ice time like less than single digits yeah and some some nights it’s single digits maybe 11 to 11 minutes some nights it’s single digits right if right they might not need them right it all kind of depends on what the need is and so the other thing uh the other question that I wanted to put out there is when coaches are looking to send out certain lines right because like to your point Maria it’s not that way anymore where it was just like okay 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 right like I mean they don’t do it that way anymore it there is a lot more strategy involved so yeah you know who presumably you’re sending out your uh top two lines based on maybe who’s also out there at the same time or who’s coming up so how do coaches know uh when to send different lines out on the ice like who are who is the first line being paired up against are they out there at the same time as the other team’s best line or is the other team sending out you know their third line is there any kind of predictable pattern or rule of thumb when it comes to that or at least in your philosophy in in the mover verse what would be your philosophy for how you send your lines answer for but there may be instances right when you start the game and you’re okay first line against first line right but we have seen those instances where you know for whatever reasons the you know because say the second or third line had a particularly good game the night before coaching staff or coaches rewarding them or right so there’s hometown debut the home or whatever the case may be right and you know you you particularly on home ice because you know right as the home coach you can pull them off the ice quick if things aren’t going and then right you you’ve got your third line out there against their first line but if things aren’t going well you pull them off the ice and you throw right your first line back out there so you know I don’t know that there’s necessarily any more kind of a rhyme or reason that coaches use other than they want to try to get the best matchups right I I mean probably the biggest rule of them is like after an icing and it’s the other team’s fourth line you put your top line out there um I mean that’s that seems to always be the case um I think when the Bruins won the cup they always started the fourth line to get that energy to get that kind of building going um so if you’ve got a line that you can count on they knew they were going to throw a big hit right you knew they would throw a big hit and and they would do it even at at away games too yep you know Club Claude had so much in that line that you know he was not opposed you know to to giving them a start here or there to just send a message this is going to be a long night for you oh yeah yep and I think sometimes it’ll also be maybe the coach does players and not so much line matchups cuz I think you’ll always see Carolina and Brymore would always put stall out there when there was a defensive zone face off because he’d pretty much always win it or you’ve got Berseron when he was playing he’d always take the defensive zone draws it looked like the Bruins were putting Beecher out there quite a bit to win a draw um so it it’s going to depend a lot on the situations and then especially in the playoffs you’ll kind of see who is matching up well against who and maybe who’s not and that’s always the biggest thing is when you’re away you’re the away team you got to change first so the other coach can basically you know kind of match up against you which is why that whole mice is just critical it is yeah yeah but I mean probably when Coyle was really good when it was like what was it the Coyle Hall line they were always going against the other team’s third line so if you’ve got an upper like a like a higher level third line put that against the other team’s third line you’ve created a great mismatch and you’re probably not giving up any goals or opportunities i mean that’s when Coyle Frederick and Smith when that line first started they were unstoppable yeah so it’s it’s all going to depend on you know matchups who you’re playing i I think the biggest thing to think about is is just where where the game is at what period what situation and then usually you can kind of dictate and and assume all right the the top line’s coming out just just cuz even if they were just out there or you know the fourth line you know sometimes you’ll see the fourth line go down and force the goalie to freeze the puck so they can get off the ice and the top line gets an offensive zone faceoff so it’s it’s it’s little things like that that you know is is kind of fun to watch the game kind like those little instances and that really sets like the good from the the the okay teams apart so So I think we know for the most part the vacancies that we have everything but do Yeah um but my question is actually now we’re only talking forwards because I know you have opinions about the defenseman and we will talk about defenseman in another episode okay what forwards that we have left are actually not in the right spot that maybe they should be somewhere else based on what we put put your coaching hat on mo yep and tell me tell us tell us who would be on the first line with David cuz we know David pastor is is your number one okay yeah first and foremost your number one who who or who should get demoted yeah well all right let’s let’s think about this so you’ve got got pasta for sure yeah i would think the chances of Geeky coming back are probably pretty good um so let’s us just assume you’ve got Geeky and Pasta as your twothirds of your top line um so I think Geeky can play center but he was playing on the on on the left side for the most part right which uh seemed to suit him because it was kind of his offside so he could do those one-times pretty easily y I did like the Lindholm at center option i think that forces Lindholm not to have as much pressure on him to produce points he can kind of I I don’t want to compare him to but he can take like the Berseronesque route where you know we’ll take 60 70 points from him but as long as he can win faceoffs be the catalyst that starts the offensive zone kind of pressure and momentum by winning the draw but also play that 200 foot game you just let Kiki and Pasta cook and who cares um outside of that if you want to get really really really funky and weird uh you put geeky and pasta and you pair him with Lori i’m just kidding i told you we’re not talking about defensemen no but Lori we’re not talking about defensemen we’re not talking about that in the next episode mo but he’s a forward now so he counts um but I I think if you’re G the guy that has to get off the top line is Zaka it’s it’s over that experiment is done his defensive game doesn’t make up for the fact that he can’t score even when the net is wide open he just misses the net so I I think your top line has to be at least right now it’s probably Ga Geeky Lindholm and Pasta i I think unless they sign like a Tavaris or another or or if they want Geeki to be center and they signed a big-time left winger I mean it’s it’s got to be those three going into training camp and they’ve got to play together at training camp well Don Don told us Don told us that the focus was going to be at the wing position so I don’t think they’re going to be doing anything of significance at that center position which is mind-boggling to me still haven’t filled these gaping holes but what the hell do I know anyways so I get it um I mean I’d rather the Bruins focus on winger than center i I think down the middle they could get away with it as long as they actually got like another couple top scoring wingers i I think they’d be okay um I mean should stay on that second line then like you said he’s defensively he’s good he’s fine he’s just the offensive or does he better align with your philosophy for the third line i think he better align my philosophy of trading him so I mean so uh well I guess that’s an option i guess that’s an option so basically we’re stuck with what we have it’s not like a It’s again it’s not like it was so cut and dry with Charlie Coyle obviously being mismatched in his roles and the expectations of him or Trent Frederick where they kept trying to make him be some more of a mid six center and when you’ve said he really belongs on the fourth line yeah um so who knows maybe we’ll get some fresh people in that they can then miss position yeah I I think the Bruins have the makings of a good fourth line and a I would say a very good top line right so you’ve got geeky Lindholm Pasta and then your fourth line if you know you’ve got Castellic already down there um so he’s going to be a solid fourthline guy he’ll he’ll hit he’ll probably fill that Gregory Campbell type role um you’ve got Beecher who is an RFA but I would be very surprised if they don’t bring him back i mean he’s 24 pepk is the wild card about whether or not they’ll bring him back but yeah I I don’t really care about Kepki i mean I don’t either i would let him go um I I think Loco would be another really good but if you’re trying to save cap space I think a guy like Riley Duran is is a really good fourthline option um I mean well don’t forget Loco is league minimum pay as well and he has a lot of speed so he does have that energy right he’s an RFA so he’ll get a pay bump i think he’s making about 788 now he’ll probably make what Castellic’s making is like one and a half yeah probably um I mean my favorite fourth line was Steen so I kind of want like another Steen type so I could see Duran being that guy because speed forcheing just a lot of that stuff that shows up off the score sheet um so when it comes to your second and third line I don’t really know what the hell’s going to happen we have nothing left you got middle stat middle stat’s okay i’m I I don’t know where he slots but I think he could be a third line guy pretty well uh you’ve probably got Lysel who I think could be a decent man you want him to be a second line guy so bad but he’s got to play with a guy that also can kind of match his speed and creativity so I don’t know if a guy like Patra if if they think he’s NHL ready um if if you put him in at the second line role but then you’ve got Patra and Lysel who I don’t really want them going up against a lot like Austin Matthews and those guys they’ll just get I wouldn’t feel comfortable with that yeah I wouldn’t feel comfortable with that um so I mean I and they’ve got to address their secondary scoring right and to me maybe this is simp overly simplistic but that comes from your second line you know so yeah you you’ve got to go out and get some proven if if you’re going to focus on wingers then you’ve got to go out and bite the bullet and get yourself a proven NHL commodity who’s going to give you 25 30 goals with your eyes closed i mean I I just don’t know how you’re going to sustain any success if you don’t address your secondary scoring needs or lack of it we need another Morgan Geeky we need to copy and paste him winger gave us their 30 goals like we just need another guy like him but I wish uh so we’re going to wrap this up um but we want to thank you Mo for coming on the show to share your philosophy of forward lines if you want to read more in depth and see some more specific examples again check out our Substack where Mo has already published that uh article and um make sure you like and subscribe and he will be back in our next episode to talk about defense so yay as always go Bees go Bees go Bees [Music] [Music]

🎙️ What is the philosophy behind NHL forward lines—and does Boston even have one right now? We dive into the long-standing roles of the top 3 lines (sorry, fourth line), what each line is supposed to do, and how past Bruins teams executed this balance to near perfection. Then we look at the current roster and ask: who’s actually filling these roles—and who’s leaving a gaping hole in the lineup? This episode is one part hockey theory, one part forensic analysis, and a whole lot of wishful thinking that Don Sweeney understands any of it.

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