Frustrated by his team's lack of focus and discipline, not to mention its utter lack of offensive production, Julien reconfigured each of his top three lines in practice on Wednesday.
Those changes were put into action on Thursday, and the results were impressive. A Bruins squad which had managed just 11 goals in its first six games broke out for six in handing Toronto its first regular loss of the season with a convincing 6-2 decision at the Garden.
"It's a message that's sent that we need to be better and find ways to create some offense," Bruins center Patrice Bergeron said. "We got the message and we have to keep going now."
The new lines clicked quickly, with a suddenly resurgent power play contributing as well. After failing to score on 22 straight chances with the man advantage, Boston built off Tuesday's late power-play strike with goals the first two times they went up a man on Thursday. Power-play strikes by Nathan Horton and Zdeno Chara erased an early 1-0 deficit, then the new lines took over at even strength.
The combination of Milan Lucic, Chris Kelly and Tyler Seguin accounted for three of the goals, while also picking up seven assists for 10 points in their first game together.
"We've played with each other at different times, but I thought tonight we each just wanted to focus on each other and our jobs," Seguin said. "When we were doing that, it just kind of made chemistry flow."
Horton added a goal and an assist in his first game with Patrice Bergeron and Brad Marchand, with Bergeron also chipping in his first goal of the season.
"It felt good," Bergeron said. "I felt pretty good right away in practice [Wednesday], but [Thursday] it felt real good with Horty and Marshy. But I think all the lines were going really well and it was pretty balanced."
Only the line of David Krejci between Benoit Pouliot and Rich Peverley failed to get on the board out of the new combinations. But Krejci still looked solid in his first game back after missing three with a core injury, and Pouliot contributed by drawing a pair of penalties. Krejci played 17:07 and had three shots and was 11-5 on faceoffs in his return.
"For me, it's not about satisfaction," Julien said. "It's about doing the right thing for the team. When it works, great. Had it not worked, I would have been back at the board tonight and trying to figure something else out. It's nice that it did work. It makes my job a lot easier.
"It was nice to see the guys, a lot of the guys that have been battling through it, manage to do well tonight," Julien added. "Horton gets that first goal, Lucic I thought really looked more like the Looch we know. Among others, David Krejci comes back in and has a pretty solid game. So we got a lot of good things out of a lot of players, and I think it was nice to see. It was refreshing, and sometimes that's what you've got to do. You've got to mix things up a little bit and give them a little bit of a sting, and usually that sting is a positive sting."
When Julien reshuffled his defense pairs in the playoffs and put Chara and Dennis Seidenberg together to form a dominant shutdown pairing, it was a tactical decision that proved a decisive move in Boston's Cup run. His line juggling here early in the regular season was less about strategy or even chemistry and more about motivation as he sought to light a fire under his struggling squad.
"It was maybe less about the chemistry and more about yourself," Julien said. "We put certain guys on certain lines so they could find their own game. I thought Looch with Kelly, and then Segs [Seguin] who just has got good speed, good skill, and it just made [Lucic] skate hard and retrieve pucks for them and make plays, so that was good. And then Horts, the minute you play with Bergy and Marsh you have to have your work ethic going and your compete level, and he did that tonight. For a lot of players, it was just about finding their own game."
That helped the Bruins find their old game, the physical, hard-working kind of effort with a balanced attack and contributions from throughout the lineup that carried them to so much success last season. Now they just have to prove that they can continue to that formula on a consistent basis.
