Jim Montgomery Faces Difficult Decision for Playoffs
The Bruins are blessed with perhaps the deepest roster in the NHL heading into the Stanley Cup Playoffs, and that leaves Jim Montgomery with a few tough decisions.
Boston has plenty of options to fill out the bottom four spots on forward and three on defense but who will be the odd men out?
Who Stays In the Playoff Lineup?
Multiple depth players have made their case - all season long - of being worthy of a spot in the lineup for the postseason, including Nick Foligno, Trent Frederic, Connor Clifton and Derek Forbort.
However, with the additions of Tyler Bertuzzi, Garnet Hathaway and Dmitry Orlov, it makes Montgomery's job that much harder, but in a good way. The Bruins top two forward lines will have plenty of options to work with when the playoffs role around. More often than not, Boston goes with the following top-six:
Marchand - Bergeron - DeBrusk
Zacha - Krejci - Pastrnak
Zacha - Krejci - Pastrnak
Montgomery likes to turn to the ''Perfection Line'' if the team needs momentum, or a goal, and both Taylor Hall and Tyler Bertuzzi are guys that can move up the lineup whenever needed.
Hall has had chemistry with David Krejci and David Pastrnak before but he was playing excellent with Charlie Coyle as his centre. Since Hall's injury was basically the reason Boston had room for Bertuzzi, the two have not played together.
As Steve Conroy of the Boston Herald recently discussed with a fan on Twitter, it would be hard to see Tomas Nosek out of the lineup in playoffs.
Does that leave Nosek, Foligno, and Hathaway with spots? If so, the Bruins bottom-six would look as such:
Hall - Coyle - Bertuzzi
Foligno - Nosek - Hathaway
Foligno - Nosek - Hathaway
That leaves a guy like Trent Frederic, who has skated in 71 of 74 games this season, out of the starting lineup for game one. Other options would include A.J. Greer and Jakub Lauko, who have been in an out of the lineup on several occasions this season.
For the back end, it will be hard to see Matthew Grzelcyk in the top six defenseman. Forbot is the perfect player to have in the playoffs, while Brandon Carlo and Clifton have proved the deserve a spot with solid play all season.
As host of the Line Changes podcast shared on Twitter, this is what Boston's defense pairing should look like:
Projected full lineup for Game 1 of playoffs:
Marchand - Bergeron - DeBrusk
Zacha - Krejci - Pastrnak
Hall - Coyle - Bertuzzi
Foligno - Nosek - Hathaway
Zacha - Krejci - Pastrnak
Hall - Coyle - Bertuzzi
Foligno - Nosek - Hathaway
Orlov - McAvoy
Lindholm - Carlo
Forbort - Clifton
Lindholm - Carlo
Forbort - Clifton
Do you agree with this?
| POLL | ||
MARS 30 | 204 ANSWERS Jim Montgomery Faces Difficult Decision for Playoffs Who should be the 4th line center? | ||
| Nosek | 139 | 68.1 % |
| Frederic | 50 | 24.5 % |
| Greer | 3 | 1.5 % |
| Lauko | 12 | 5.9 % |
| List of polls | ||
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