Shifts can be scarce for fourth-line players, especially when the pressure is ratcheted up in sudden-death overtime.
But Bruins coach Claude Julien wasn’t afraid to use his fourth line in overtime in Game 2 of his club’s second-round series with Philadelphia. Even though they were twice out opposite the Flyers’ high-powered line of James van Riemsdyk, Claude Giroux and Nikolay Zherdev, the combination of Daniel Paille, Gregory Campbell and Shawn Thornton kept the Flyers off the board while buying time for the top three lines to get some much-needed rest.
Less than two minutes after the fourth line’s second overtime shift, David Krejci ended the game with a strike 14 minutes into the extra session.
On Wednesday, the fourth line saw even more ice time, and this time they provided the key goal themselves in Boston’s 5-1 win to take a commanding 3-0 series lead.
“I think it helps that he puts faith in us,” Paille said of Julien’s willingness to trust the line in overtime. “We get to play sometimes against their top three lines, so I think it helps us out in the long run to know that he has faith to put us out there.”
Paille rewarded that faith with his first postseason goal on Wednesday. The Bruins had jumped out to a 2-0 lead just 1:03 into the game, but it remained 2-0 late in the second with the Flyers threatening to make a game of it. Paille ended those fears when he finished a 3-on-2 rush with a perfectly-placed wrister from the left wing inside the far post to make it 3-0 at 13:39 of the middle frame.
All three members of the line played a key role in the goal, with Campbell sending the pass over to Paille for the primary assist and Thornton hustling down the middle, driving the net to pull the defender away from Paille and distract Flyers goalie Brian Boucher.
“That was great, [Thornton] was obviously a nice little delay there for me so he could get their backchecking forward there to give me the whole side open,” Paille said. “Soup [Campbell] had his head up the whole time, saw me wide open and I fired it in, so it was good.”
The fourth line was very good throughout the season, providing energy and physical play and a surprising amount of offensive production. Campbell had 13-16-29 totals and was a plus-11 with 93 penalty minutes and 11 fighting majors in 80 games, Thornton added 10-10-20 totals, a plus-8, 122 PIMs and 14 fights in 79 games and Paille, who became a fixture on the line after Brad Marchand moved up to a scoring line with Patrice Bergeron and Mark Recchi, chipped in 6-7-13 totals and a plus-3 in 43 games.
“This is a line that we counted on all year,” Juilen said. “It’s also a line that we think is one of the better fourth lines we’ve seen in the league. And when we need them they are there for us.”
But even this fourth line saw its ice time shrink in the postseason. Campbell has gone from averaging 13:26 a game in the regular season to 11:25 so far in the playoffs, Paille from 11:18 to 9:09 and Thornton, who doesn’t play on the penalty kill like his linemates, from 10:04 to 6:45. That makes it tougher to put up numbers, but the line tries to make the most of the opportunities it does get.
“Yeah, that’s the whole focus for our line,” Paille said. “If we don’t play much, we try to create as much as we can. So it’s nice to see us get rewarded and finish one.”
Campbell already had a goal in the first game against Philadelphia, but that came off a feed from David Krejci in the closing minutes of a 7-3 win. Paille’s tally on Wednesday was the first postseason score with all three members of what Thornton dubbed the “Merlot Line” for their maroon practice jerseys on the ice together.
“I don’t know, I mean obviously we got on the board, so I guess point-wise maybe,” Thornton said when asked if Game 3 was the line’s best game in the playoffs. “Soupy’s had one earlier in the series too. Him and Piesy were out there with Kreech. We got to play a little bit more in the second and third, and it’s a lot easier to play when you’re rolling. I mean, [with] penalties and stuff, sometimes you’re sitting there for 10-15 minutes, and it’s our job to stay ready. But it’s a little bit harder to get going when you’ve been sitting there for 15 minutes. So we had a chance to play a little bit more tonight. It felt like the legs were there a little bit more and we could probably get in the forecheck and do a little bit more.
“We’ve had confidence as a line all year,” Thornton added. “We think we’re a really effective line when we’re going. I’m happy to play whatever amount of minutes we play, but the more you play, the more of a rhythm you get into. That’s not too hard to figure out.”
The rest of the Bruins have also figured out that they’re a better team when getting contributions from the entire lineup, and they recognize that the fourth line is an important part of their success, regardless of how many shifts they play on a given night.
“It’s very important throughout the playoffs that you use all four lines,” captain Zdeno Chara said. “And there are guys who you don’t see always on the ice, but you never question their work ethic. They always give you 100 percent and they are always creating some energy or something happening on the ice. So it’s so important if you’re going deep in the playoffs to use all four lines. And everyone feels comfortable with that. There are times we are going to have to rely on different people and players. So we are happy where we are right now.”
